Vacuum consolidation was used to improve highly compressible soft organic soil encountered inthe Southern Transport Development Project in Sri Lanka. The soft layers were improved by a combined vacuumconsolidation and surcharging with 5 to 9m high stage constructed embankments to compensate the primaryconsolidation settlements and to minimize the secondary settlements. The improvement in the peaty soildue to the vacuum consolidation was assessed from the data obtained through the field monitoring programand the results obtained from the laboratory and field tests carried out on improved and unimproved groundareas. The obtained data was analyzed to investigate the effectiveness of vacuum consolidation process in improvingthe properties of Sri Lankan peaty soils. Furthermore, the obtained data was analyzed to quantify theimprovement in the strength due to vacuum consolidation and compressibility properties. In addition, some ofthe already published empirical correlations for Sri Lankan peaty soils were improved by including the dataobtained from the field and laboratory testing programme carried out under the present study.
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