SoftGroundImprovementusingElectroosmosis

YanfengZhuang*,YunlanHuang,FeifeiLiu,ZiyouLi,WeilieZou

SchoolofCivilEngineering
WuhanUniversity,Wuhan430072,P.R.China
Email:zhuang@tsinghua.edu.cn

Abstract

Increasing environmental concerns as well as land demands has led to a growth of hydraulic-
filled areas. Hydraulic-filled materials are usually fine-grained stuff, like dredged materials,
sewage sludge, tailings, etc. Therefore, hydraulic-filled areas are soft ground with high water
content and very low hydraulic permeability. Vacuum preloading is by far the most popular
technique for consolidating hydraulic-filled areas. However, due to extremely low hydraulic
permeability of fine-grained materials, the vacuum preloading consolidation is too slow and its
effect is very poor for deep hydraulic-filled soft ground.
Electro-osmotic consolidation can be an alternative solution for this kind of soft ground
improvement. Electro-osmotic consolidation is much quicker than preloading method. However,
corrosion of electrode and relatively high electrical energy consumption are two aspects that
restrain its application. This paper presents the solutions for these issues.
A novel Electro-Kinetic Geosynthetics (EKG) was developed and it is corrosion-proof during
electro-osmosis. Technique of polar reverse according to the variation of electric current during
electro-osmosis was developed. This technique is based on a new model different to the classical
Esrig model for electro-osmotic consolidation. A novel program-controlled DC power source
was developed to realize the polar reverse technique.
A case study shows that electro-osmotic consolidation with the novel EKG and DC source is
very efficient. The 19m15m hydraulic filled area, with 5.8 m deep of dredged pool sludge, was
improved from fluid-like status to a bearing capacity of 70 kPa and the water content was
reduced from 62% to 36%. Comparing with the 36 days of treatment using electro-osmosis, it
will take 3 years for the preloading method to achieve the same improvement. It indicates that for
this specific case, it is actually impossible for the preloading method to consolidate the soft
ground to such an extent.

 
1. Introduction
There are a lot of hydraulic-filled areas around the world. These areas are usually containment
areas for dredged materials, sewage sludge or tailings. Hydraulic-filled areas are produced also
from reclamation projects, which create lands from lake or sea. Increasing environmental
concerns as well as land demands has led to a growth of hydraulic-filled areas.
Land reclamation has played a significant role in many countries, such as Netherlands, Japan,
Singapore, Korea and China. For example, Netherlands is known as a reclaimed land from the
ocean. The ancestors of Dutch have been working to reclaim land from the North Sea for over
2000 years and even in 1986 the Netherlands proclaimed a new province of Flevoland, which is
the 12th province reclaimed from the ocean (Hoeksema 2007). In Singapore, growth of economy
and population pushes it to create more lands by reclamation. Large scale of reclamation in
Singapore started in 1960s and land area increase from 580 km2 to 680 km2 till 2003. The latest
reclamation scheme is to increased land area in Singapore by 100 km2 by the year 2030 (Yang
2003). In China, hydraulic fill reclamation has been going on in coastal cities like Xiamen,
Tianjin, Wenzhou, Guangzhou, etc. For example, a reclamation area of 300 hectare was
completed in Wenzhou in 2012 and three artificial islands, whose area is 350 ha for total, is on
reclaiming for the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge project.
Stuff for hydraulic fill is usually fine-grained materials which have high water content and very
low hydraulic permeability. Therefore, it takes long time for the consolidation of these soft
ground created by hydraulic fill method. Currently the most popular technique for consolidating
hydraulic-filled areas is vacuum preloading. However, for materials with very low hydraulic
permeability (usually below 10-7 cm/s) vacuum preloading is too slow. And also for deep
hydraulic-filled soft ground (usually deeper than 4 m), the effect of vacuum preloading is limited.
For these fine-grained materials, electro-osmotic consolidation can be an alternative option.
Electro-osmotic consolidation is a technique that removes water from soils under DC electric
field. Phenomenon of electro-osmosis was discovered very early by Reuss in 1809. He found that
DC field can create water flow from anode to cathode, and thus water can be removed from the
soil through the discharging channel around cathode. Since the discovery of electro-osmosis, it
has been applied in many geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering, such as soft ground
improvement (Casagrande 1952a, b; Bjerrum et al. 1967; Shang et al. 1996), tailing dam stability
(Zhu et al. 1996; Liu et al. 1988), dredged silt disposal (Chen et al. 2006), sewage sludge
dewatering (Xu 1980), food industry residues treatment (Chen et al. 1996; Al-Asheh et al. 2006),
etc.
Electro-osmotic consolidation is much quicker than preloading method. Flow rate produced
under electric field can be 100 to 10000 times greater than that under hydraulic gradient (Jones et
al. 2008). However, there are two aspects that have been holding back its application in fine-
grained soft ground improvement; one is corrosion of electrode and the other is relatively high
electrical energy consumption. In this paper, a system of electro-osmotic consolidation, including
novel Electro-Kinetic Geosynthetics (EKG), electric power source and methodology of electro-
osmosis, is presented and it is followed also by a case study for interpretation of its in-situ
application.
2. EKG Material
In order to solve the problem of electrode corrosion for electro-osmosis, a novel corrosion-
proof EKG material was developed. The EKG is based on electric conductive polymer and
analysis shows that the conductivity of EKG shall be higher than 103 -1m-1 (Zhuang 2005a,
2012b). According to recommendation of Zhuang in 2005, for better distribution of electric
current into the soil and for convenience of wiring, it is worth to embed wires inside the
conductive polymer.
The EKG material developed is shown in the figure 1. The EKG looks like classical PVD, only
that it is made from conductive polymer with a conductivity of 103 -1m-1. The EKG is 100 mm
wide and 0.8 mm thick. Every groove on the both sides of EKG is 3 mm wide and the thin-wall
of these grooves is 0.8 mm thick. As shown in the figure 1 there are two bumps of 6 mm wide
and 2.5 mm thick on both sides of the EKG. Two copper wires of  1 mm are embedded inside
the bumps.

Figure 1: Photo of EKG

3. Methodology of Electro-osmosis and Electric Power Source

Classical theory for electro-osmotic consolidation proposed by Esrig in 1968 indicates that
flow rate of electro-osmosis is a coupled result of voltage gradient and hydraulic gradient and
electro-osmotic consolidation stops when the drive of electric field is balanced by that of
hydraulic gradient from an opposite direction. However, research shows that the flow rate
depends mostly on the mobility of ions in the soil and the consolidation stops when the mobility
of ions is zero under the certain electric field. Based on this knowledge, to improve the effect of
electro-osmotic consolidation is to maintain as high as possible the mobility of ions during
electro-osmosis (Zhuang 2005a,b, 2012a, b, ). For this purpose, the voltage applied on the soil
shall be adjusted according the variation of electric current during electro-osmosis. In order to do
so, a novel DC source was developed. The DC source has a power of 80V/2000A and it is
controlled by a custom-developed program.
4. Case Study
A 19m15m hydraulic-filled area was treated with electro-osmosis technique. The area was
filled with 5.8 m thick of dredged pool sludge. The properties of sludge before electro-osmotic
consolidation are shown in the table 1. The sludge has no strength before consolidation.

Specific Water content Dry density Permeability Liquid limit Plastic limit
gravity % (g/cm3) (cm/s) % %

2.61 62 1.03 3.010-7 50 22

Table 1: Properties of sludge before electro-osmotic consolidation

The EKG electrodes were square arrayed at a space of 1 m. The whole treatment included two
stages separated by 16 days of intermittence.
Stage 1: Electro-osmotic consolidation began under a constant-current mode of 290 A and
lasted for 233.57 hours (~10 days). Then it is switched to a constant-voltage mode of 50 V and
lasted for 28.55 hours (~ 1 day).
Stage 2: After the intermittence, electro-osmotic consolidation continues under a constant
voltage mode of 80 V. It lasted for 215.02 hours (~ 9 days).
The whole treatment was controlled by program from computer. Electrode polar was reversed
according to the trend of electric current variation. Generally, stage 1 had longer time of current
in reverse direction, while stage 2 had longer time of current in forward direction. Purpose of this
scheme for electro-osmosis was to main as much as possible mobile cation in the soil.
Test results show that the water content of soil decreased from 62% to 36%; the
unconsolidated-undrained shear strength increased from 0 to 25 kPa; the soft ground was
improved from a fluid-like status to a bearing capacity of 70 kPa. Comparison of soft ground
before and after treatment is shown in figure 2. The average energy consumption for this
treatment was 5.6 kwh/m3.
Preloading method for the consolidation of the same soft ground was analyzed for comparison.
The soil had a coefficient of consolidation CV=0.0029cm2/s and a compression index CC=0.3611.
Therefore, in order to achieve the same effect of consolidation (to reduce water content from 62%
to 36%), there should be 132 kPa of preloading (around 6~7 m high of surcharge with soil); and
it would take 1139 days, which is more than 3 years, to achieve 90% of consolidation. It is
almost an imposable mission for preloading consolidation, while electro-osmotic consolidation
completed it in only 36 days, including 16 days of intermittence.

Figure 2: Comparison of soft ground before and after electro-osmosis treatment

5. Conclusions
(1) A novel geosynthetics, corrosion-proof EKG, was developed. It is made from electric
conductive polymer with two copper wires embedded. The EKG is in a shape similar to
PVD and has an electric conductivity of 103 -1m-1.
(2) In order to improve the effect of electro-osmotic consolidation, it is important to maintain
as high as possible the mobility of ions in the soil. For this purpose, polar reverse shall be
carried out according to the trend of electric current variation. A novel DC power source
was designed to meet this requirement; the automatic polar reverse can be realized by
program.
(3) Application of EKG and DC source in the improvement of soft ground shows that it took
only 36 days to reduce water content of dredged sludge from 62% to 36%. And after
electro-osmotic consolidation the soft ground was improved from a fluid-like status to a
bearing capacity of 70 kPa. It would take 3 years for preloading consolidation to achieve
the same effect for this specific case.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by research grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of
China (NSFC Grant No. 51109168) and the Ministry of Education of China (Ph.D. Programs
Foundation of Ministry of Education of China Grant No. 20100141120016).

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