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Soils and Foundations 61 (2021) 1630–1644
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Technical Paper

Influence of prefabricated vertical drains spacing on

FeCl3-vacuum consolidation of a landfill sludge
Xudong Zhang a, Yajun Wu a,⇑, Yitian Lu a,⇑, Guang Chen b,⇑, Qingyang Deng a,
Yang Xu a, Peng Ye a
a
Department of Civil Engineering, Shanghai University, 99 Shangda Road, Shanghai 200444, PR China
b
Shanghai Chengtou Wastewater Treatment Co., Ltd, Shanghai 201203, PR China

Received 21 December 2020; received in revised form 15 September 2021; accepted 1 October 2021
Available online 29 October 2021

Abstract

The spacing of PVDs is an essential factor affecting the consolidation effect of vacuum preloading. For exploring the influence of spac-
ing of PVDs on the impact of sludge drainage consolidation, FeCl3, a commonly used inorganic coagulant, was used to pretreat the
sludge. In the experiment a vacuum filtration test was carried out to determine the optimal addition amount of FeCl3, and then the land-
fill sludge was pretreated according to the FeCl3 optimal addition amount. And two different spacing of PVDs were used to carry out a
vacuum preloading contrast test. Then, the drainage and settlement were recorded, and water content and vane shear strength (VSS)
were measured after the experiment. Finally, Mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) was carried out to explore the pore characteristics
of the sludge further. The main conclusions are as follows: After conditioning by FeCl3, the sludge’s flocculent structure was destroyed,
the intracellular water was released, and the effect of drainage capacity was significantly improved. After the spacing of PVDs is halved,
the average volume reduction ratio and shear strength increases, and the effect of advanced dewatering and volume reduction of sludge
improved significantly, leading to a better consolidation effect. In the progress of vacuum drainage consolidation, halving the spacing of
PVDs results in large pores transformation into small pores, and the range of drainage consolidation is greatly expanded.
Ó 2021 Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of The Japanese Geotechnical Society. This is an open access article under the CC BY-
NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Keywords: Landfill sludge; Spacing of PVDs; FeCl3 pretreatment; Vacuum preloading; Vacuum clogging effect

1. Introduction pollution. Thus, the treatment of sludge is necessary.

With the continuous growth of population and the
development of urbanization, municipal sludge production
is also increasing. High water content, loose structure, a
significant amount of organic matter and microorganisms,
and certain harmful heavy metals are present in municipal
sludge. (Chanaka Udayanga et al., 2018; Dong et al., 2013;
Wang et al., 2015), which may cause serious environmental
⇑ Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: xdzhang@shu.edu.cn (X. Zhang), wyjdldz@shu.edu.
cn (Y. Wu), luyitianxxxx@163.com (Y. Lu), chenguang@shwwt.com
(G. Chen).
Sludge disposal methods currently mainly include sanitary
landfill, agricultural use, dry incineration, construction
material use, soil remediation, etc.(Wang et al., 2015).
Due to the advantages of low cost and large capacity, the
sanitary landfill was mainly used to dispose of municipal
sludge in China (Lin et al., 2014a). Previously, to better treat
sewage sludge, many scholars have carried out many studies
on sludge and landfill. Sludge is similar to organic soil and
has great compression potential (Disfani et al., 2013). When
a large amount of sludge is poured into a landfill, many geo-
logical, environmental problems will inevitably occur, such
as compression settlement, local instability, and slope insta-
bility of the landfill (Lo et al., 2002). Tuncer B. Edil. et al.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sandf.2021.10.001
0038-0806/Ó 2021 Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of The Japanese Geotechnical Society.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
 X. Zhang et al.
(1990) proposed two mathematical models to predict landfill
settlement more accurately to evaluate the residual capacity
of landfill more efficiently and make full use of the valuable
space of landfill. Lo et al. (2002) estimates the slope stability
and potential settlement of CEPT sludge by analyzing CEPT
sludge’s geotechnical engineering characteristics and recom-
mends the maximum allowable slope value of CEPT sludge.
Asakura et al. (2009) studied the permeability of sludge in a
landfill. They analyzed the parameters that had a significant
influence on the oxygen penetration depth by considering the
diffusion and convection driven by a temperature gradient to
ensure the allowable proportion of sludge in the landfill’s
oxygen-demand area. These studies provide important guid-
ance for sludge treatment. However, with the continuous
increase of sludge production, the storage capacity of many
sludge reservoirs or sludge pits is insufficient in China. It is
difficult to find new landfill sites because of the shortage of
land resources. Therefore, the drainage volume reduction
and pit reinforcement in the sludge reservoir area have
become the problems to be solved in most landfills. There
are two ways to solve the problem of sludge landfill site’s
insufficient storage capacity: ectopic treatment and in-situ
treatment. Due to the need to dig out the sludge, the off-
site treatment easily causes secondary pollution such as odor
and sewage. It may cause damage to the protective mem-
brane and leakage of leachate to pollute the environment.
In-situ treatment is to directly use vacuum preloading
method on the sludge pit for in-situ drainage reinforcement,
the secondary pollution can be avoided if the filtrate is prop-
erly treated, and in-situ treatment has the advantages of low
treatment cost and large single treatment capacity (Cai et al.,
2015; Lin et al., 2014a; Zhu et al., 2018).
The studies on sludge mainly focuses on improving the
dewatering index sludge and solidifying sludge (Guo
et al., 2020; He et al., 2015; Lang et al., 2020; Rao et al.,
2019; Wang et al., 2020a; Wu et al., 2020b; Zhang et al.,
2021a; Zhang et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2021b). Many
scholars have explored the dewatering characteristics of
sludge before. Ayol (2005), using high molecular flocculant
for enzymatic pretreatment of sludge can significantly
improve sludge dewatering capacity. Ruiz-Hernando
et al. (2014) carried out ultrasonic, thermal and alkaline
treatment on the sludge to improve its dewatering capacity.
The results showed that heat treatment, high ultrasonic
intensity and alkaline treatment could improve the sludge
dewatering capacity by releasing interstitial water. Fitria
et al. (2013) tested different shapes of mixers (radial, axial,
wheel, three-blade and magnetic) to evaluate their effects
on sludge dewatering test. Lee and Liu (2000) studied the
method of sludge dewatering by dual polyelectrolyte regu-
lation, and proposed the reaction mechanism of dual poly-
electrolyte regulation based on the enhanced flocculation of
sludge particles.
In recent years, chemical pretreatment combined with
vacuum preloading is considered to be an effective method
for sludge drainage volume reduction. Chemical reagents,
due to their strong oxygen or coagulation effects, can
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Soils and Foundations 61 (2021) 1630–1644
destroy the cell structure of sludge and release interstitial
water and bound water to improve the drainage potential,
which is often used for sludge treatment. After chemical
pretreatment, the sludge dewatering potential is greatly
improved. Vacuum preloading is the drainage consolida-
tion of sludge in a landfill under vacuum pressure. Reduc-
ing the sludge volume by reducing the water content of
sludge is beneficial to reduce the cost of subsequent sludge
reuse. However, few systematic studies on the vacuum drai-
nage reinforcement of landfill sludge. As one of the effec-
tive methods to reduce the volume of landfill sludge,
vacuum preloading is lack of more comprehensive
research. When sludge treated by vacuum preloading, the
prefabricated vertical drain (PVD) needs to be connected
to the drainage pipe and inserted into the sludge at a cer-
tain distance. And use geomembrane seal sludge. Then,
the vacuum pressure was applied to the sludge by vacuum
pump, and the sludge was consolidated under vacuum
pressure. PVD plays an essential role in draining water
and transferring vacuum load in the vacuum preloading
process. It is the core material of vacuum preloading tech-
nology. Recently, researchers have shown an increased
interest in the effect of PVD in vacuum drainage consolida-
tion. Cai et al. (2017) studied the PVD embedded in
dredged soil and proposed deformed effect PVD on soil
consolidation drainage capacity. Wang et al. (2020b) inves-
tigated the influence of PVD with varying pore sizes on
vacuum preloading and suggested the filter membrane opti-
mal pore size. Wu et al. (2021) studied the effect of different
PVD filter membrane sizes on the vacuum drainage consol-
idation of landfill sludge conditioned by Fenton reagent.
The spacing and arrangement of PVDs are essential fac-
tors in vacuum preloading (Sun et al., 2017). At present,
only few scholars have conducted studies on the selection
and optimization of the spacing of PVDs. R.
Radhakrishnan (2011) conducted the field test of vacuum
preloading for soft clay foundation and suggested that
the distance of PVDs should be reasonably reduced to
improve the effect of vacuum preloading. Sun et al.
(2017) conducted experiments on improving the soft clay
by vacuum preloading combined with short prefabricated
drainage boards. They explored the influence of the spacing
of PVDs on vacuum preloading and proposed the optimal
spacing of PVD. Wang et al. (2020d) studied a membrane
connector vacuum preloading method and compared the
efficiency of this new method with that of the traditional
PVD-hose method, investigated the influence of different
PVD spacing on soil reinforcement, and suggested an opti-
mal PVD spacing.
All of the above are related studies on soft clay or
dredger fill silt, and there is no in-depth explanation of
the influence mechanism of PVDs space. The sludge prop-
erties are quite different from soft clay and silt. Therefore,
it is necessary to study the influence of PVDs space on
sludge in-situ reinforcement effect.
Based on the above problems, in this paper, the com-
mon inorganic coagulant FeCl3 is used to precondition
 X. Zhang et al.
the sludge. As a sludge coagulant, FeCl3 is often used in
sludge pretreatment by compressing the double electric
layer of sludge cells, significantly improving the drainage
and consolidation effect of sludge (Lin et al., 2014b). In this
test, two different spacing of PVDs were set up to carry out
the vacuum preloading contrast test. After vacuum
preloading, the data of sludge drainage, VSS, water content
distribution, and pore distribution were compared, the
influence of the PVDs space on vacuum drainage reinforce-
ment was analyzed, and the mechanism of spacing between
PVDs was preliminarily revealed, which provides a certain
reference for engineering practice.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Sludge samples and chemical reagents
The landfill sludge was taken from a sludge landfill area in
Shanghai. The sludge basic geotechnical properties are
shown in Table 1. It is important to note that the sludge used
in this study has been stored in landfills for a long time. Due
to the high organic matter content of sludge and the exis-
tence of many microorganisms, the sludge in the landfill is
subject to certain decomposition reactions. It leads to deteri-
oration of the sludge engineering properties (Klein and
Sarsby, 2000). Therefore, the measurement of sludge organic
matter is essential. In this test, the sludge sample was placed
in a muffle furnace and burned at 550°C for 2h. The organic
matter in the sludge would decompose and carbonize under
the action of high temperature. The final mass reduction is
the organic matter content of the sludge. Besides, due to
the high organic content of the sludge, the oven temperature
cannot be set to 105°C when measuring the water content
because the high temperature will burn the organic particles
in the sludge and make it dry and carbonized (Arulrajah
et al., 2013; Arulrajah et al., 2011). Therefore, in this water
content measurement test, the drying temperature was
65°C and the drying time was 48h.
In the test, FeCl3 is used as conditioning reagent, and
the mass fraction is 98%. When treating the sludge, first
weigh the weight of ferric chloride, then prepare the solu-
tion, finally fully mixed. As shown in Fig. 1(b), all the
reagents were added according to the mass percentage of
the sludge dry basis.
2.2. Test apparatus and devices
The test equipment and instruments mainly include elec-
tronic scale, beaker, PVD, model box (Fig. 1 (d)), vacuum
Table 1
Basic geotechnical properties of sludge.
Water content Specific gravity Organic matter content
(%) (%)
76.2 1.8 40.9
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Soils and Foundations 61 (2021) 1630–1644
pump, vacuum conversion valve, jars, vacuum gauge,
meter ruler, drainage pipe, valve, sealing film, geotextile,
etc. The vacuum preloading test device is shown in Fig. 2.
2.3. Test procedure
2.3.1. Vacuum filtration test
In the research for investigating sludge dewatering per-
formance, the specific resistance to filtration (SRF) is usu-
ally used as an essential index to evaluate the sludge
dewatering performance. The smaller the SRF, the easier
the sludge is dewatered (Lo et al., 2001). SRF represents
the resistance on the filtration area per unit mass of sludge
under a certain pressure.
In this study, FeCl3 was selected as a pretreatment
reagent to treat sludge. To explore the relationship between
the addition amount of FeCl3 and the SRF of sludge, we
determined the addition amount of FeCl3 according to
the percentage of sludge mass after drying. Thus, different
amounts of FeCl3 were added to the sludge based on the
dry sludge’s proportion in this test. The additional amount
is shown in Table 2. Then the vacuum filtration test was
carried out after thorough mixing. During the test, record
the test parameters such as vacuum pressure, filtrate vol-
ume, etc. The SRF can be calculated as follows:
2PA2 b
r¼ ð1Þ
lC
where A is the filtration area; b is the slope of the line
t=m ¼ mb þ a, where v represents the filtering volume and t
represents filtering time.; C is the weight of solids per unit
volume of filtrate; P is the pressure of filtration; and l is the
filtrate viscosity.
2.3.2. Vacuum preloading model test
According to the vacuum filtration test results, the opti-
mal additive amount of FeCl3 was 20 %. Therefore, 20 %
FeCl3 was used to pretreatment sludge No. 1 and No. 2,
and No. 3 was the original sludge. Separated PVD was
selected for vacuum preloading model test, the spacing of
PVDs in No. 1 and No. 3 was 60cm, and No. 2 was
30cm. The detailed test scheme is shown in Table 3. Then
the vacuum preloading model test was carried out; the
schematic diagram of this test is shown in Fig 2. During
the vacuum preloading, the data of vacuum degrees, water
discharge. A ruler is placed on the inner wall of the model
box to record the sludge height during the vacuum preload-
ing process. Due to the uneven height of the sludge, heights
of the sludge at the different positions were measured to
Density Permeability coefficient Void ratio
(gcm-3) (10-7cms-1)
1.12 1.9 5.75
 X. Zhang et al.
Fig. 1. Flow diagram of this study.
calculate the average height, and the change in the average
height is the settlement of the sludge. After vacuum
preloading, sludge samples were taken for water content
test and vane shear test. In order to further explore the
state of the sludge after vacuum preloading, MIP was con-
ducted to investigate the pore characteristics of the sludge.
The flow diagram of this study is shown in Fig. 1.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Vacuum filtration test results
According to the vacuum filtration test results, the rela-
tions between SRF and FeCl3 is shown in Fig. 3. The SRF
of the original sludge is about 9.5  1012 m/kg, and when
FeCl3 addition is less than 20 %, the SRF of sludge
decrease rapidly with the increase of FeCl3 addition, and
when FeCl3 addition is 20 %, the SRF reached the mini-
mum. The SRF was 0.28  1012 m/kg, which decreased
by more than 97% compared with the original sludge. After
FeCl3 was added more than 20 %, the SRF no longer
reduced but increased. The reason is that when FeCl3 is
in an appropriate amount, Fe3+ hydrolyzes to produce
Fe(OH)3 and H+, Fe(OH)3 as coagulant can promote the
flocculation of colloidal particles in the sludge through
adsorption and bridging; H+ reduce the PH value of
sludge, and destroy the extracellular polymer of sludge,
release intracellular water. However, when FeCl3 addition
is more than 20 %, some hydrolytic products are difficult
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Soils and Foundations 61 (2021) 1630–1644
to capture the colloidal particles of sludge, and the exces-
sive hydrolysate is suspended in the liquid, which weakens
its coagulation capacity (Wu et al., 2020a). The additional
amount of 20 % is an obvious inflexion point of the curve.
Thus 20 % FeCl3 is selected as the optimal addition
amount.
3.2. Vacuum degree
The variation of vacuum degree with time during the
test is shown in Fig. 4. It can be seen from Fig. 4 that
the vacuum degree of the three groups of tests is the same
during the test process. In the test process, most of the time
the vacuum degree is above 60 kPa, the sealing condition is
good. However, due to the vertical settlement and radial
shrinkage of the sludge in the test process, it is inevitable
to lead to air leakage in the model box. The vacuum degree
reduces to less than 40 kPa. Due to the timely repair, the
vacuum degree soon returned to about 60 kPa, without
affecting the test results.
3.3. Cumulative water discharge
The curve of water discharge of each model box in the
test over time is shown in Fig. 5. When the drainage rate
is lower than 0.02 L/h, the vacuum preload test can be
regarded as stable, and it will be stopped. When the consol-
idation drainage reaches stability, No. 1 and No. 3 spend
730 h, while No. 2 only spends 490 h. It can be seen from
 X. Zhang et al. Soils and Foundations 61 (2021) 1630–1644

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of the vacuum preloading test.

Table 2 vacuum degree to rise. Therefore, it can be seen that main-

The addition amount of reagent.
Reagent Addition amount
Anhydrous FeCl3 0% 10% 20% 30% 40%
Note: The added amount is the mass ratio of FeCl3 to the sludge dry basis.
Fig. 5 that the drainage performance of the original sludge
is abysmal, and the total drainage volume is the smallest,
only 5.65 L. After conditioning with FeCl3, the drainage
volume of No. 1 and No. 2 increases significantly, and
the finally drainage are 49.86 L and 57.11 L, respectively.
The reason for this phenomenon is that the addition of
FeCl3 destroys the sludge’s stable flocculent structure and
releases intracellular water.
The slowdown of the drainage rate of No. 2 after 170 h
is owing to the decrease of vacuum pressure. The sudden
increase of the drainage curve at 270 h is due to the repair
of the test device after air leakage, which caused the
taining a high and stable vacuum degree is conducive to
increase the water discharge and shorten the consolidation
time of vacuum preloading.
As shown in Fig. 5, The drainage curve of No. 2 can be
divided into two stages. The stage 1 is 0  90 h, and the
stage 2 is 90  490 h. The 90 h was derived from the inter-
section of the slopes of the two tangents in the No. 2. Stage
1 was the fast drainage period, where the sludge was
drained rapidly due to the high vacuum pressure provided
by the double PVDs. The drainage volume of No. 2 in
stage 1 was 28.7 L, which accounted for 50.3% of the total
drainage volume. Stage 2 was the stabilization stage, and
there was no significant difference between the drainage
rates of No. 1 and No. 2 after 90 h. It can be concluded
that decreasing the spacing of PVDs can significantly
improve the consolidation and drainage rate in the early
period, while the sludge solidification drainage rate gradu-
ally decreases with the test time increase.

Table 3
Vacuum preloading test scheme.
Model box number Sludge consumption (kg) Reagents Add ratio (%) Distance(cm)
1 150 FeCl3 20 60 (Single PVD)
2 FeCl3 20 30 (Double PVDs)
3 — — 60 (Single PVD)

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 X. Zhang et al.
Fig. 3. Sludge SRF variations with different additive amounts of FeCl3.
Fig. 4. variation curves of vacuum degree over time.
Fig. 5. Variation curves of water discharge with time.
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Soils and Foundations 61 (2021) 1630–1644
3.4. Cumulative settlement and the volume reduction ratio
3.4.1. Cumulated settlement
During the test, the change of sludge height with time
was recorded by the scale. Due to the uneven height of
the sludge, the sludge height in this article is the average
height. The average settlement of sludge can be calculated
by the variation of sludge height. Besides, due to the
decrease of sludge volume during vacuum preloading, the
sealing membrane around the sludge is separated from
the model box’s inner wall, resulting in gaps, as shown in
Fig. 6 (b). After the test, the width of the gaps is measured
by a ruler, which is the radial shrinkage. The curves of each
model box’s cumulative settlement over time are shown in
Fig. 6 (a). The cumulative settlement curve of No. 3 (orig-
inal sludge) is very slow, and the final settlement is only 2.4
cm. After pretreatment with FeCl3, the cumulative settle-
ment of sludge increased obviously. At 490 h, the sludge
of No. 2 was stable. At this time, the settlement of No. 1
was 14.80 cm, the settlement of No. 2 was 11.43 cm, and
the settlement of No. 3 without chemical treatment was
only 2.01 cm. Similar to the drainage curves, the settlement
curve of No. 2 can also be roughly divided into two stages.
The first stage is the rapid settlement stage. The settlement
in the early 90 hours is 6.92 cm, accounting for 60.5% of
the total settlement. The second stage is 90492 h, which
is a slow settlement stage, and the settlement is only
4.51 cm.
It can be seen from the previous description that the
cumulative drainage of No. 2 is more than that of No. 1,
while the settlement of No. 2 in Fig. 6 (a) is less than that
of No. 1. The reason is shown in Fig. 6 (b) that No. 1 and
No. 2 pretreated by FeCl3 have not only vertical settlement
but also have radial shrinkage during the vacuum preload-
ing, but the radial shrinkage of No. 2 is much larger than
that of No. 1. The sludge after the test is shown in Fig. 7
(c). After the end of the test, the maximum radial shrinkage
of No. 2 is 9 cm, much larger than that of No. 1 at 4.5 cm.
3.4.2. Variation in the height of sludge surface
Six observation points along the radial direction are
selected to monitor the sludge surface’s height after vac-
uum preloading. The schematic diagram of observation
points is shown in Fig. 8. The monitoring results are shown
in Fig. 9. It can be seen from Fig. 9 that in the process of
vacuum drainage consolidation, the settlement of the
sludge surface is uneven. In model box No. 1, the settle-
ment on both sides of PVD is large, but the settlement near
PVD is small, which is shown in Fig. 8(a); The final height
of the sludge surface is M-shaped in No. 2, the settlement
of soil near the two PVDs is small, and the settlement in
the middle of the two PVDs is large. The common feature
of No. 1 and No. 2 is that there is less settlement near the
PVD and more settlement on both sides. As shown in
Fig. 8, the sludge near the PVD is higher than elsewhere,
like a rising ‘‘soil pile”, which may be related to the
clogging effect around the PVD (Zhang et al., 2020). A
 X. Zhang et al. Soils and Foundations 61 (2021) 1630–1644

Fig. 6. (a) Variation curves of cumulative settlement with time; (b) Schematic diagram of settlement and radial shrinkage.

schematic diagram is drawn to better explain the clogging
mechanism around the PVD, as shown in Fig. 7(c). In
the vacuum drainage consolidation process, the small par-
ticles in the sludge move horizontally and gather around
the drainage plate under the action of horizontal seepage
force and gradually form a clogging zone with high
strength and low permeability through seepage compres-
sion and vertical consolidation. (Wang et al., 2020c; Xu
et al., 2020). Because the density and strength of ‘‘soil pile”
are higher than in other places, the compression settlement
of ‘‘soil pile” is small. As consolidation proceeds, the settle-
ment difference between near and far from the PVD will
1636
gradually increase, and the ‘‘soil pile” will correspondingly
rise, as shown in Fig. 7 (a).
3.4.3. The volume reduction ratio
The volume reduction ratio of each group was calcu-
lated according to the volume change before and after
the vacuum preloading, as shown in Table 4.
According to Table 4, the volume reduction ratio of No.
3 is the smallest, only 4.6%. Compared with the pretreat-
ment sludge, the volume reduction ratio of No. 2 is
50.7%, and that of No. 1 is 36.2%; compared with the orig-
inal sludge, the volume reduction ratio of No. 2 is 45.0%,
 X. Zhang et al. Soils and Foundations 61 (2021) 1630–1644

Fig. 7. (a), (b) Sludge at the end of the experiment; and (c) Schematic diagram of the clogging effect.

and that of No. 1 is 28.8%. After the spacing of PVDs is
halved, the volume reduction ratio of No. 2 is increased
by 48.2% on average compared to No. 1. It can be seen
from the results that the reagent combined vacuum
preloading method has dramatically improved the sludge
dewatering ability. Moreover, with the decrease of PVDs
spacing, the volume reduction rate of sludge further
increased. The volume reduction rate in No. 2 (double
PVDs) reached 50.7 %, and the volume of sludge was
reduced by half. The volume reduction effect was excellent.
3.5. Water content distribution
After the vacuum preloading model test, the water con-
tent of each model box was measured at different depths
1637
and different distances from the PVD. The sampling points
and test points are shown in Fig. 10, and the results are
shown in Fig. 11.
It can be seen from Fig. 11 that within the depth of
20cm, the water content of No. 3 original sludge is more
than 72%. The water content of the original sludge is still
high after vacuum preloading because the original sludge
has poor drainage capacity. Within the 20cm depth, the
water content of No. 1 and No. 2 are both significantly
lower than before vacuum preloading. At 1cm from the
surface PVD, the water content of No. 1 and No. 2
decreases the most, which drops to 57%, 56.8%, decreases
by 18.8%, and 19%, respectively. In other locations, with
the increase of the distance from the PVD and the increase
of the depth, the water content gradually increases. In the
 X. Zhang et al. Soils and Foundations 61 (2021) 1630–1644

Fig. 8. Schematic diagram of observation points and ‘‘soil pile”.

(a) No. 1 (b) No. 2

Fig. 9. Sludge height variation curves.

completely lower than 60 %, which meets the requirements

Table 4 of advanced dewatering. Therefore, increasing the number
Volume reduced ratio. of PVDs or reducing the PVDs spacing will promote the
Model box Volume reduced ratio Volume reduced ratio vacuum preloading consolidation of sludge, and signifi-
number (compared with (compared with original cantly reduce the water content.
pretreatment sludge) sludge)
(%) (%)
At 1 cm away from the PVD, the water content of No. 2
at depth of 0 cm and 20 cm increased by 1.2 %, and No. 1 is
1 36.2 28.8
2 50.7 45.0
3.2 %. At 13 cm away from the board, the water content of
3 — 4.6 No. 2 at depth of 0cm and 20cm increased by 1.5 %, and
that of No. 1 is 6.2 %. This phenomenon shown that reduc-
ing the PVDs spacing can make the water content distribu-
surface layer, the water content distribution is more even tion more even. Increasing the number of PVDs or
than in the deep layer. Compared with Fig. 11(a) and (b), decreasing the spacing of PVDs to make full use of the
it easy to found that the water content curves of No. 1 effective influence range of PVDs, and form a broader
and No. 2 has a significant change at a depth of 10 cm, range of vacuum seepage field between the two PVDs
which indicates that the water content in the depth of 10 (Song et al., 2004), which can enhance the effect of vacuum
cm is more even than that of 20 cm. The distribution prop- preloading combined action and improve the effect of
erties of water content in three groups can be obtained: the ‘‘infiltrating-concretion” in vacuum seepage field.
deeper the depth, the higher the water content; under the
same depth, the farther away from the PVD, the higher 3.6. Vane shear strength
the water content, which may be affected by the dissipation
of vacuum pressure (Zhu et al., 2010). As shown in Fig. 11, As shown in Fig. 1(f), after the vacuum preloading model
after vacuum preloading, only the water content in No. 2 is test, the vane shear test was carried out on the sludge at 3cm,
1638
 X. Zhang et al.
Fig. 10. Schematic diagram of sampling points and test points.
13cm, and 23cm away from the PVD. The test points are
shown in Fig. 10. Firstly, the vane shear test was carried
out on the sludge in the model box, and then the sludge be
remoulded, and the vane shear test was carried out on the
remoulded sludge. The results are shown in Table 5.
It can be seen from Table 5 that the average VSS of
No. 3 after vacuum preloading at a depth of 20cm is only
1 kPa, which is very low. The VSS of No. 1 and No. 2
conditioned by reagent has been dramatically improved
after vacuum preloading. The VSSmax of No. 2 reached
24.9 kPa, with an average of 17.4 kPa, and the VSSmax
of No. 1 reached 18.6 kPa, with an average of 11.7
kPa, which increased more than 10 times compared with
No. 3. Compared with No. 1, the VSSmax of No. 2 has
increased by 33.8 %. The average VSS has increased by
48.7 %, which indicates that reducing PVDs spacing is
conducive to sludge drainage consolidation. As the pore
water pressure continues to dissipate, the effective stress
increases, then the VSS of sludge is further improved. It
can be seen from Table 5 that the distribution of VSS is
uneven. The farther away from the PVD along the radial
direction, the lower the VSS is, and the strength close to
the PVD is the highest, which is consistent with the distri-
bution properties of water content.
It can be seen from Table 5 that the VSS of No. 3
remoulded sludge is the same as the in-situ strength, and
the strength of No. 1 and No. 2 remoulded sludge is
reduced compared with the in-situ strength. No. 1 drop
by 13.1 kPa at most, and No. 2 drops by at most. The
sludge’s strength decreased significantly after being dis-
turbed, which indicated that the structure of the sludge
treated by the reagent was improved considerably after
vacuum preloading. The sensitivity of No. 2 is more than
3.0, belonging to medium sensitivity soil, and the sensitivity
of No. 1 is also more than 1.6, close to medium sensitivity
soil.
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Soils and Foundations 61 (2021) 1630–1644
3.7. Mercury intrusion porosimetry
MIP has been used to study the pore distribution of soft
clay, but it is rare to study the pore distribution of sludge
after vacuum preloading. The mechanism of MIP is to
assume that the pores in the soil are cylindrical. By apply-
ing a certain mercury pressure, a certain amount of mer-
cury is pushed into the pores in the soil, the mercury
volume is equal to pore volume, and the pore size can be
calculated according to the mercury pressure. In order to
explore the pore size and pore distribution properties after
vacuum preloading, sludge samples were taken at the sur-
face, and the positions were 1cm and 13cm away from
the PVD. The test device is shown in Fig. 1 (g), and the test
points are shown in Fig. 10. Due to the water content of
No. 3 is too high and the strength is too low, it is impossi-
ble to take out stable samples, thus the pore distribution
characteristics of No. 1 and No. 2 are only studied.
3.7.1. Macroscopic analysis of pores
It can be seen from Table 6 that within 1cm13cm away
from the PVD, the void ratio of No. 1 is 0.52 and the void
ratio is 0.93; the void ratio of No. 2 is 0.56, and the void
ratio is 0.64. It can be seen that in the area close to the
PVD, the difference of the porosity in two model boxes is
not significant. However, the farther away from the drai-
nage plate, the larger the porosity difference will be.
After FeCl3 pretreatment and combined vacuum
preloading, the average pore ratio of No. 1 and No. 2
decreased more than 87 %, indicating that in the vacuum
preloading process, with the continuous discharge of pore
water, the pore volume decreased significantly, which also
explained the reason why the drainage rate slowed down
in the middle and later period of vacuum preloading. From
the distance of 1cm13cm to the PVD, the porosity of
 X. Zhang et al.
Fig. 11. Water content distribution curves.
model box No. 1 increased by 0.14, and that of model box
No. 2 increased by 0.03. It can be seen that the pore ratio
and porosity increase along the radial direction, and the
1640
Soils and Foundations 61 (2021) 1630–1644
influence of double PVDs on the porosity is greater than
that of single PVD, which indicates that increasing the
number of PVDs or reducing the spacing of PVDs is con-
ducive to strengthening the effect of vacuum consolidation
between PVDs, expanding the influence range of vacuum
pressure (Chen et al., 2012), making the soil more compact
and consolidating.
3.7.2. Microscopic analysis of pores
The pore size distribution density obtained from the
MIP is shown in Fig. 12. The distance from the PVD is
113 cm, and the maximum pore density does not
change significantly. The distribution density of No. 2 is
the highest when the pore size is about 50  1000 nm,
and the maximum distribution density is 0.32 mL/g. In
No. 2 model box, the maximum pore density at 13 cm is
slightly higher than 1 cm. No. 1 has the highest distribution
density when the pore size is 6000 nm, and that of No. 2 is
800 nm. The corresponding pore size of No. 2 distribution
density is much lower than that of No.1. The results show
that with the increase of the number of PVDs or the
decrease of the spacing of PVDs, the influence range of vac-
uum pressure also increases. Thus, the large pores trans-
form into small pores. The macropores and mesopores
decrease obviously, and consolidation is improved.
It can be seen from Fig. 12 that, in the No. 1, the farther
away from the PVD, the wider the range of pore size distri-
bution, and the more small pores and micropores in the
range of 10500 nm; In the pore size range of 10  40
nm, the pore size distribution density of 2-1 is larger than
2-2; in the pore size range of 40  1000 nm, 2-2 is larger
than 2-1; there is no significant difference in the distribution
density of 2-1 and 2-2 more than 1000 nm, which indicates
that as sludge is drained and consolidated, large pores are
compressed into small pores; In addition, reducing the
spacing between drainage plates will lead to the increase
of small pore density and the decrease of large pore density.
The closer to the PVDs, the conversion rate of large pores
to small pores is improved, the small pores and micropores
increase, the degree of sludge consolidation is higher, and
the effect of vacuum preloading consolidation is better.
Besides, due to the high content of organic matter in land-
fill sludge and long storage time in landfill, long-term
biodegradation will lead to the change of pore network in
sludge, thereby improving the potential of sludge consoli-
dation. The consolidation efficiency of sludge was
enhanced by the action of biodegradation and vacuum
pressure. (Disfani et al., 2013; Tuncer B. Edil. et al., 1990)
In order to study the properties of pore distribution and
accurately describe the change of relative content of differ-
ent size pores, it is necessary to classify the pores. However,
there is no unified standard for the boundary value of pore
size division of soft clay and sludge (Delage and Lefebvre,
1984; Griffths and Joshi, 1989; Hua yang et al., 2009;
Lapierre et al., 1990). Shear et al. (1992) conducted a large
number of experiments based on undisturbed and reconsti-
tuted specimens of soft gray Pleistocene clay, and classified
 X. Zhang et al. Soils and Foundations 61 (2021) 1630–1644

Table 5
Shear strength of sludge.
Depth (cm) Distance from PVD (cm) Sludge strength (kPa) Reshaped sludge strength (kPa) Sensitivity (St)
No.1 No.2 No.3 No.1 No.2 No.3 No.1 No.2 No.3
20 3 18.6 14.8 1.2 5.5 4.5 1.1 3.7 3.3 1.1
13 9.9 24.9 1 5.0 5.6 1 1.8 4.5 1
23 6.5 12.4 0.8 4.1 4.1 0.8 1.6 3.0 1

Table 6
Macroscopic index of porosity of surface sludge.
Depth Distance Porosity Void ratio
(cm) Origin No. 1 (Single PVD) No. 2 (Double PVDs) Origin No. 1 (Single PVD) No. 2 (Double PVDs)
sludge sludge
Within 5 cm 1 0.80 0.34 0.36 4.11 0.52 0.56
13 0.48 0.39 0.93 0.64

the pores in the clay. Therefore, based on Shear’s standard
and considering the micro-pore size distribution character-
istics of sludge, the pore diameter was divided into the fol-
lowing four categories: ① macropores (d > 100000 nm); ②
mesopores (10000 < d < 100000 nm); ③ small pores (200 <
d  10000 nm); ④ micropores (d  200nm).
According to the pore division standard above, the vol-
ume percentage content of each pore’ type was calculated,
as shown in Fig. 13.
The pore size distributions of sludge at different sam-
pling positions are shown in Fig. 13. In the No. 1 model
box, small pores and micropores’ content is 67.71 % at 1
cm away from the PVD and 61.82 % at 13cm. In the No.
2 model box, the content of small pores and micropores
at 1cm is 86.91 %, and that at 13 cm is 83.43 %.

Fig. 12. Pore size distribution density curves. Fig. 13. Changes in pore size distribution.
1641
 X. Zhang et al.
It can be seen that in the two model boxes, the spacing
of PVD is reduced, the content of small pores and microp-
ores increased, the content of micropores and small pores
at 1cm was 5.89 % and 3.48 % more than that at 13 cm,
respectively. In the vacuum drainage consolidation process,
the pores are compressed and filled with small particles,
resulting in a reduction in macropores and mesopores’ con-
tent. Therefore, the degree of consolidation near PVD is
higher than that in other places, which also proves the rea-
son for the occurrence of ‘‘soil piles” near PVD. As shown
in Fig. 13, the micropore content of No. 2 at 1cm is signif-
icantly higher than that at 13 cm. However, the micropore
content of No. 1 at 1 cm is less than that at 13 cm, which is
maybe due to the small particles discharged through the fil-
ter membrane pores during vacuum consolidation, result-
ing in the pore size at 1cm becoming larger.
Compared with No. 1 and No. 2, the content of micro-
pores at 1 cm of No. 1 is 5.89 % more than that at 13 cm in
12 cm, while that of No. 2 is only 3.48 %, the pore size dis-
tribution of No. 2 is more even along the radial direction. It
can be seen that the pore size of No. 1 changes more obvi-
ously, because in the process of vacuum drainage consoli-
dation, PVD is mainly used to transfer vacuum load, and
there will be some loss of vacuum pressure along the radial
direction (Zhu et al., 2010). The closer to PVD, the higher
the vacuum pressure and the better the consolidation effect.
It is shown that increasing the number of PVD or reducing
the spacing of PVDs can reduce the dissipation of vacuum
pressure, which is conducive to increase the influence range
of vacuum consolidation.
4. Conclusion
(1) After conditioning by FeCl3, the SRF of No. 1 and
No. 2 is significantly reduced, the intracellular water
of sludge is released, and the reinforcement effect of
vacuum drainage is greatly improved compared with
the original sludge. Compared with No. 1, the drai-
nage volume and volume reduction ratio of No. 2
are increased by 14.5 % and 48.2 %, respectively.
The distribution of water content and shear strength
of No. 2 is more uniform than that of No. 1.
(2) After FeCl3 pretreatment and combined vacuum
preloading, the VSS of No. 2 and No.1 is 24.9 kPa
and 18.6 kPa, and the water content of the sludge sur-
face layer less than 60 %, and volume is reduced by 45.0
% and 28.8 % compared with the original sludge. After
the spacing of PVD is halved, the volume reduction
ratio of No. 2 is increased by 48.2 % compared with
that of No. 1, and the capacity of advanced dewatering
and volume reduction of sludge is significant.
(3) Increasing the number of PVDs or reducing the spac-
ing of PVDs is conducive to faster drainage consoli-
dation, improving efficiency and saving time,
enhancing the effect of dewatering and volume reduc-
tion. Meanwhile, the distribution of water content
and VSS will be more even.
1642
Soils and Foundations 61 (2021) 1630–1644
(4) As the distance from the PVD increases, the porosity
and void ratio increase; the average pore ratio of No.
2 is smaller than that of No. 1, a contented the change
rate of pore content and pore size is also lower, and
the pore distribution is even than that of No. 1. After
vacuum preloading, the contents of small pores and
micropores are higher, which shows that reducing
the PVD spacing can increase the influence range of
vacuum consolidation and transform the macropores
and mesopores into small pores and micropore,
improve the effect of drainage consolidation.
(5) With the progress of vacuum drainage consolidation,
pore water is discharged through PVD. Under the
action of pore water, small particles gradually move
towards PVD and aggregate, forming a vacuum clog-
ging zone. The clogging area has high strength, few
pores, and low water content, which result in less set-
tlement around PVD, just like a ‘‘soil pile”.
5. Data Availability Statement
All data, models, and code generated or used during the
study appear in the submitted article.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful for the financial support for the
study presented in this paper from the Shanghai Sailing
Program (Grant No. 19YF1415500), the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41772303) and
Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission
(Grant No. 20DZ2250800).
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