River-dredged sludge has a high water content and minimal bearing capacity and strength. Adding cement, fly ash, and slag to dredged sludge as a combined curing agent can quickly reduce its water content and improve its strength. This study experimentally investigates the solidification effectiveness of different proportions of curing agents using methods including electron microscopy, particle size analysis, water ratio limit, and water content and direct shear tests. The water content and shear strength of different combined curing agents are obtained at different ages. We find that an optimum curing agent combination exists. With increases in fly ash and slag content, test results indicate that the water content of solidified sludge first decreases and then increases, whereas the shear strength first increases and then decreases, allowing an optimal combination curing agent to be obtained. When using industrial waste residue as curing agent, it is necessary to consider the negative effects of the curing agent to better control the dosage so as to achieve better curing effect.

Vacuum preloading is often used to improve the geotechnical properties of dredged slurry. Although the performance of this method has improved with rapidly developing technology, soil columns usually formed on the drainage boundary induce the decrease of permeability around the boundary, thereby limiting the further development of this method. To address this issue, this paper proposes a method for pretreating the slurry combined with sand prior to vacuum consolidation. This method partially replaces the fine particles with sand to reduce the formation of soil columns. Two groups of vacuum preloading tests were performed to investigate the effect of sand content and sand grain size on the vacuum consolidation of dredged slurry. The test results revealed that for a given sand grain size, increasing the sand content of the sand–slurry mixture increased the pore water drainage and accelerated the dissipation of pore water pressure, thereby increasing the vane shear strength. In contrast, for a constant sand content, the samples containing coarse sand exhibited increased pore water drainage and accelerated dissipation of pore water pressure, thereby increasing the vane shear strength of the soil.

Aiming at the problem of serious soil cracking during electro-osmosis stage in the treatment of dredged slurry by vacuum pre-loading in combination with electro-osmosis method, this study proposes a new vacuum pre-loading method in combination with electro-osmosis and with dynamic compaction to overcome these drawbacks. Meanwhile, different current ratios are used to characterise the different activation times of the dynamic compaction to achieve the optimal activation time. Five laboratory tests were performed on dredged slurry in self-made plexiglass model bucket, and the electric current, drainage of soil, soil surface settlement and vane shear strength, etc. in the reinforcement of dredged were monitored. The test results show that the combined action of the vacuum pre-loading, electro-osmosis, and dynamic compaction process enhances the circuit current, improves the efficiency of the electro-osmotic drainage, and thus promotes the drainage of the soil and ultimately yields a better reinforcement effect. Meanwhile, the dynamic compaction process effectively reduces the energy consumption in the process of vacuum pre-loading combined with electro-osmosis. In addition, the optimal effect owing to the dredged slurry can be evoked when the dynamic compaction is activated in the middle stage of the electro-osmosis process.