Abstract
The problems of embankment construction over peat ground with high water content mostly relates to stability, and long-term settlement. Vacuum consolidation method is commonly used to assist the embankment construction over the soft ground for the purpose of accelerating a consolidation process as well as increasing an overall stability of soft ground for a rapidly embankment construction. Theoretically, the vacuum pressure is considered to be a surcharge load applying to the ground. This load will be removed immediately after the termination of vacuum operation. Basically, the settlement after construction can be minimized by waiting the primary consolidation process to complete at the higher degree prior the removal of surcharge resulting in the increase of over consolidation ratio. Nevertheless, the effect of vacuum consolidation as a surcharge load related to a long-term settlement characteristic has not been clearly investigated. This paper presented the measurement of the long-term settlement after the embankment constructions over peat ground assisted by vacuum consolidation. The effect of vacuum operation period was observed based on the field monitoring data. Moreover, the effect of surcharge by embankment and vacuum consolidation method was also studied and compared. It was found that the increasing vacuum pumping period and increasing the amount of surcharge by vacuum consolidation gave a very good performance to reduce the long-term settlement after the construction.
