An embankment constructed using vacuum consolidation

Vacuum consolidation ground treatment has been used to facilitate timely construction of a road embankment on a 25 m thick deposit of soft to firm estuarine clay. This was the first application of the vacuum consolidation technique in Australia. This paper presents the vacuum consolidation technique, provides a summary of its construction and presents data during construction, consolidation and after decommissioning. A comparison with an adjacent embankment section constructed using the conventional surcharge and wick drain approach highlights enhanced stability obtained using vacuum consolidation.