A terminal storage yard along the Yangtze River was reinforced using vacuum combined surcharge preloading in Zhenjiang

Jiangsu

China.The pore water pressure was measured and analyzed during preloading by installing pore water pressure gauges in the Yangtze River floodplain foundation.The results show that the pore water pressure tends to be relatively stable after 30 days in the reinforced foundation treated by vacuum preloading.Meanwhile

the excess pore water pressure dissipation is significantly affected by the distribution of vacuum pressure along the depth of prefabricated vertical drains（PVDs）.The vacuum pressure in the PVDs decreases with the depth

and the decay rate is closely related to the properties of soil layer around PVDs.For the Yangtze River floodplain silty clay

the decay rate is about 3 kPa/m.