SEEPAGE THROUGH SOIL

Md. Aftabur Rahman, PhD

Assistant Professor
Department of Civil Engineering
Chittagong University of Engineering & Technology
Chittagong-4349, Bangladesh
 INTRODUCTION
The interaction between soils and percolating water is important ! !
Specially for
• Design of foundations and earth slopes
• To determine the quantity of water lost by percolation through
a dam or its sub-soil

To determine the stability of slopes, Calculation of seepage force is important !

 LAPLACE EQUATION
• The flow is two-dimensional
• Water and soil are incompressible
• Soil is isotropic and homogeneous
• The soil is fully saturated
• The flow is steady, i.e. flow conditions
do not change with time
• Darcy’s law is valid

For isotropic, homogenous soils

 SIMPLE FLOW PROBLEM
• Flow is one dimensional and a constant head is maintained

After some trivial transformations,

 FLOW LINE, EQUIPOTENTIAL LINE & FLOW NET
Flow line
The path which a particle of water
follows in its course of seepage
through a saturated soil mass

Equipotential line
the line that connects the same head
of water during seepage is known as
equipotential line
Equipotential lines are lines that
intersect the flow lines at right angles

Flow net
The flow lines and equipotential lines together form a flow net. The flow net gives a
pictorial representation of the path taken by water particles and the head variation along
that path
 GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION OF FLOW NET

1. Draw the geometry of structure correctly on

the paper
2. Select proper Nf values. Normally Nf values of
3 or 4 is adequate for the first trial

3. Identify the boundary flow lines and boundary equipotential lines in the drawing. In
an example in the given gigure, the upstream ground surface and downstream ground
surface are the initial and the final equipotential lines, respectively. The front and
backside of the sheet pile and the surface of the impervious layer are the boundary of
flow lines.
 GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION OF FLOW NET
4. First draw trial flow lines with selected Nf
for entire earth structures. This must be
done based on the engineer’s best instinct
on how water flows. It should be noted
that there are equal amounts of water flow
through all flow channels.

5. By starting from the upstream site, draw the first equipotential line to have all net
openings squares or near squares with 900 intersections.
6. Continue the foregoing step for the second and third equipotential lines and so on till
it reaches the downstream exit
SEEPAGE FROM FLOW NET

No. of flow channel

No. of equipotential drop

 NUMERICAL PROBLEMS
Flow net under a concrete dam is drawn in the following figure
(a) Calculate and plot the water pressure distribution along the base of the dam
SEEPAGE THROUGH AN EARTH DAM ON AN IMPERVIOUS BASE

Following is a step-by-step procedure to obtain the seepage rate q:

1. Obtain α
2. Calculate ∆ and then 0.3∆
3. Calculate d
4. With known value of α and d, calculate L
5. With known value o L, calculate q
SEEPAGE THROUGH AN EARTH DAM ON AN IMPERVIOUS BASE
The previous equation is known as Schaffernak’s solution (1917)

However, this solution is applicable for α less than 30 0 . However, for angle
greater 300 than , L.Casagrande (1937) gives a solution , which is
STESSESES IN SOILS WITHOUT SEEPAGE
STESSES IN SOILS WITH UPWARD SEEPAGE
STESSES IN SOILS WITH DOWNWARD SEEPAGE
 SEEPAGE FORCE
• Effect of seepage is to increase/decrease the effective stress
• Seepage force is expressed as forcer per unit volume (j) and act in the same
direction of seepage for isotropic soil

No seepage

Upward seepage

Downward seepage
 QUICKSAND CONDTION
The effective stress is reduced due to upward flow of water. When the upward flow
is increased, a stage is eventually reached when effective stress is reduced to zero.
The condition so developed is knows as quicksand condition

Critical Hydraulic Gradient

It is to be emphasized that quick sand is not a special type of sand. It is a
condition which occurs in a soil when the effective stress is zero. Any cohesionless
soil can become quick when the upward seepage force is large enough to carry
the soil particles upward.
 NUMERICAL PROBLEMS
The excavated pit shown in following figure is kept dry by continuous pumping
of water. The thickness of clay layer is 15m, and the artesian pressure height is
10m. Determine the maximum excavation depth without heaving
 NUMERICAL PROBLEMS
The excavated pit shown in following figure is done and depth of excavation
is 10m. The water level in the pit is 5m. (a) Check the excavation safety for
this wet excavation, (b) if the above is safe against heaving, by how much
could the water level in the pit be lowered by pumping without heave
 CAPILLARY RISE AND EFFECTIVE STRESS
Soils above water table, are, in general, not completely dry due to capillary rise.
The capillary zone affected by the rise depends on the size of the void opening of
the soils. The smaller the void spacing, the higher the rise. Small void spaces in
soil assemblages work as capillary tubes

Hazen (1930) empirically gave an approximation of maximum capillary height

= effective grain size in mm
= constant with a range of 10 to 50
 CAPILLARY RISE AND EFFECTIVE STRESS
Capillary rise is due to suction created by the surface tension of water films
around particles. This suction works as attractive particle-to-particle stress and
creates negative pore water pressure. Thus, it increases the effective stress.

Theoretically, the pore water pressure is in the capillary zone. However, the
degree of saturation in the capillary zone changes from nearly fully saturated
condition at the water level to very low at the highest rise. Therefore, the
actual pore water pressure is
 NUMERICAL PROBLEMS
For the soil condition given in the following figure, plot total stress, pore water
pressure, and effective stress distributions with the depth considering the
capillary rise. Assume that the average degree of saturation in the capillary zone is
50%
 FILTER DESIGN

• When seepage water flows from a soil with relatively fine grains into a
coarser material, there is a danger that fine particles may wash away into
coarser material
• Filter drains are required on the downstream sides of hydraulic structures
and around drainage pipes
• A properly graded filter prevents the erosion of soil in contact with it due to
seepage forces
• The size of the voids in the filter material should be small enough to hold
the particles of the protected materials

• The filter materials should have high hydraulic conductivity

 PIPING FAILURE
Piping failure caused by heave can be expected to occur on the downstream side
of a hydraulic structure when the uplift forces of seepage exceed the downward
forces due to the submerged weight of the soil

Heave Zone

D/2
Terzaghi (1922) concluded that heaving generally occur within a distance D/2
from sheet pile, where D is the depth of embedment into permeable layer
 FACTOR OF SAFETY AGAINST HEAVE FAILURE
Heave Zone
Factor of Safety,

= submerged weight of the

soil in the heaved zone per
unit length D
= uplifting force caused by
seepage on same soil D/2

After some transformations,

According to Harza (1935)

Maximum exit gradient
USE OF FILTER TO INCREASE FACTOR OF SAFETY