Abstract: To solve the issue of the electrode corrosion and high energy consumption in the vacuum preloading combined with electroosmosis, an improved method, namely, the vacuum preloading combined with the anode follow-up electroosmosis is proposed in this paper. The soil improvement effect of the vacuum preloading combined with the anode follow-up electroosmosis under different potential gradients was evaluated by a series of laboratory model tests. The test results show that the anode follow-up electroosmosis method with the pre-inserted electrode can significantly improve the soil strengthening effect. Compared with the vacuum preloading combined with the electroosmosis, the vacuum preloading combined with the anode follow-up electroosmosis methods can increase the water discharge by 31.3%, the average soil surface settlement increase by 15.9%, the overall water content in the improved soil is also lower. The vacuum preloading with the high potential gradient combined with the anode follow-up electroosmosis method can improve the overall soil strengthening effect, while the soil homogeneity with the low potential gradient is better and the energy consumption per unit water discharge is lower. 

Key words: Vacuum Preloading, Electroosmosis, Anode Followup, Potential Gradient