6-Water in Soil

Water in Soil
Outlines
 Introduction
 Darcy’s Law
 Volume of water flowing per unit time
 Measuring K in laboratory
 Seepage Theory
 Flow Net
Introduction
 All soils are permeable materials, water being free to flow
through the interconnected pores between the solid particles.
 You must know how much water is flowing through a soil per
unit time.
 This knowledge is required to
 Design earth dams.
 Determine the quantity of seepage under hydraulic structures.
 and dewater foundations before and during their construction.
 The pressure of the pore water is measured relative to
atmospheric pressure and the level at which the pressure is
atmospheric (i.e. zero) is defined as the water table (WT) or the
phreatic surface.
 Below the water table the soil is assumed to be fully saturated,
 Below the water table the pore water may be static, the
hydrostatic pressure depending on the depth below the water
table, or may be seeping through the soil under hydraulic
gradient: this chapter is concerned with the second case.
Introduction
 Bernoulli’s theorem applies to the pore water but
seepage velocities in soils are normally so small
that velocity head can be neglected
where h is the total head, u the pore water

pressure, w the unit weight of water (9.8 kN/m3)
and z the elevation head above a chosen datum.
Darcy’s law
 Darcy (1856) proposed the following equation for
calculating the velocity of flow of water through a soil:
In this equation,
v = Darcy velocity (unit: cm/sec)
k = hydraulic conductivity of soil (unit: cm/sec)
i = hydraulic gradient
The hydraulic gradient is defined as
where
h = piezometric head difference between the sections at AA and B B
L = distance between the sections at AA and BB
(Note: Sections AA and BB are perpendicular to the direction of flow.)
Volume of water flowing per unit time
where q is the volume of water flowing per unit time, A the cross-
sectional area of soil corresponding to the flow,
The K also varies with temperature, upon which the viscosity of the
water depends. If the value of k measured at 20 C is taken as 100%
then the values at 10 and 0 C are 77 and 56%, respectively. The
coefficient of permeability can also be represented by the equation:
where w is the unit weight of water, the viscosity of water  and K

(units m2) an absolute coefficient depending only on the characteristics
of the soil skeleton.
The values of k for different types of soil are
typically within the ranges shown in Table
seepage velocity
On the microscopic scale the water seeping through a soil follows a
very tortuous path between the solid particles but macroscopically
the flow path
The seepage velocity
Av: the average area of voids
The porosity, n, can also be expressed as

Measuring K in laboratory
 Two Main Method
 The coefficient of permeability for coarse soils can be determined
by means of the constant-head permeability test
 For fine soils (clays and silt) the falling-head test should be used
Laboratory permeability tests:

(a) constant head and
(b) falling head.
Measuring K in laboratory
(a) constant head and
(b) falling head.
For Clean Uniform sands, Hazen showed that the approximate

value of k is given by
where D10 is the effective size in mm.

Seepage Theory
 The general case of seepage in two dimensions will now be
considered
 Assumption
 soil is homogeneous and isotropic
 Generalized Darcy Law will be used
Derivation
total head h decreasing in
(1) the directions of vx and vz
qin=qout (2)
(3) equation of continuity in two dimensions.

Solution
 Two  Functions satisfy Laplace Equation
 First function (x, z), called the potential function,
 Second function (x, z), called the flow function,
In Eq 3
If the function (x, z) is given a constant value 1

then d=0 and
If (x, z) is constant then d= 0 and

Flow Net
Constrained for Flow Net
Flow Net under Dam
Flow Net in Backfill of Retaining Wall
INTERPRETATION OF FLOW NET
 Head loss between each consecutive pair of equipotential
lines H
h 
Nd
 Flow through each flow channel for an isotropic soil from
Darcy’s Law
h H b
q  Aki  b  1 k
b
 kh  k
L L Nd L
 Total flow Nf
H Nf
q  k ( ) i  kH
i 1 N d Nd
Hydraulic Gradient
 Hydraulic gradient over each square
h
i
 Maximum hydraulic gradient L
h
i max 
L min
 Critical Hydraulic Gradient
 Critical hydraulic gradient that brings a soil mass to static
liquefaction, , Heaving, Boiling, and Piping
 Gs 1  w Gs 1
i  i cr  ( ) 
w 1 e w 1 e
 Safe if i<icritical  F.S=icritical/iexit1.0

Pore Water Pressure Distribution
 Pressure head
h 
p j  H  ( N d ) j h  h z
 Pore water pressure

u j  h p  j  w
 Uplift Forces n
Pw   u j x j
j1
 Calculating the uplift force per unit length using Simpson’s
rule
 
x  n n

Pw   u 1  u n  2 u i  4  u i 
3  i 3 i2 
 odd even 
ANISOTROPIC SOIL CONDITIONS
 Most natural soil deposits are anisotropic, with the
coefficient of permeability having a maximum value in the
direction of stratification and a minimum value in the
direction normal to that of stratification; these directions are
denoted by x and z, respectively, i.e.
 Same solution but you need to have xt instead of x and K’

instead of K in flow equation.
Non-homogeneous Soil Conditions
 For horizontal flow, the head drop Dh over the same flow
path length H1+H2 will be the same for each layer.
 For vertical flow, the flow rate q through area A of each

layer is the same.

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Water in Soil

where h is the total head, u the pore water

where w is the unit weight of water, the viscosity of water  and K

The seepage velocity

Av: the average area of voids

The porosity, n, can also be expressed as

Laboratory permeability tests:

(b) falling head.

For Clean Uniform sands, Hazen showed that the approximate

where D10 is the effective size in mm.

(3) equation of continuity in two dimensions.

If the function (x, z) is given a constant value 1

If (x, z) is constant then d= 0 and

 Safe if i<icritical  F.S=icritical/iexit1.0

 Pore water pressure

 Same solution but you need to have xt instead of x and K’

 For vertical flow, the flow rate q through area A of each

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