The synchronous vacuum prcloading technique for treating soft ground and its overlying hydraulic surcharge fills is analyzed. The surcharge effect of hydraulically-filled mud is considered

involving the variations from linear increasing in surcharge with the process of hydraulic filling to non-linear exponential decreasing in surcharge with the process of vacuum preloading.The decrease in surcharge-induced stress with depth

as well as the smear effect due to installation of vertical drains

is also considered. Based on the equal strain assumption

explicit analytical solutions are derived for the excess pore-water pressure at any arbitrary point in soil and the overall average degree of consolidation of soft ground under simultaneously radial and vertical consolidation. The consolidation process of soft ground for a field test is calculated by using the proposed solutions. From a comparison of the calculated with measured results

it is found that the calculated results are consistent with the measured ones in terms of the tendency of the variation of the degree of consolidation with time. Thus it verifies the applicability of the proposed solution. Meanwhile

it is found that the horizontal hydraulic conductivity is a key parameter governing the precision of the calculated results.