Consolidation behaviour of marine clay improvement by combined vacuum preloading with geotextile

The traditional vacuum preloading method of prefabricated vertical drain (PVDs) has been widely used in practical engineering. However, the serious clogging effect around PVDs in the process of vacuum-preloading reinforcement can easily lead to a series of problems such as uneven settlement and large lateral displacement of soil after reinforcement, which seriously affects the application of PVDs in marine clay foundation treatment. In this paper, the effect of combined treatment of marine clay by geotextiles and PVDs on reducing the clogging effect around PVDs was studied by laboratory model experiment. The effects of geotextiles with different diameters and spacings on the surface settlement, excess pore water pressure and lateral displacement of the reinforced soil were analysed. The experimental results show that this method has obvious help on alleviating the above problems, thus providing a reference for the application of geotextile combined with vacuum preloading method to treat marine clay foundation in engineering practice.