Calculation of groundwater head distribution with a close barrier during excavation dewatering in confined aquifer

When pumping is conducted in confined aquifer inside excavation pit(waterproof curtain),the direction of the groundwater seepage outside the excavation changes from horizontal to vertical owing to the existence of the curtain barrier.There is no analytical calculation method for the groundwater head distribution induced by dewatering inside excavation.This paper first analyses the mechanism of the blocking effects from a close barrier in confined aquifer.Then,a simple equation based on analytical solution is proposed to calculate groundwater heads inside and outside of the excavation pit with waterproof curtain(hereafter refer to close barrier)in a confined aquifer.The distribution of groundwater head is derived according to two conditions:(i)pumping with a constant water head,and(ii)pumping with a constant flow rate.The proposed calculation equation is verified by both numerical simulation and experimental results.The comparisons demonstrate that the proposed model can be applied in engineering practice of excavation.

Experimental and numerical investigation of groundwater head losses on and nearby short intersections between disc-shaped fractures

Discrete fracture models are used for investigating precise processes of groundwater flow in fractured rocks,while a disc-shaped parallel-plates model for a single fracture is more reasonable and efficient for computational treatments.The flow velocity has a large spatial differentiation which is more likely to produce non-linear flow and additional head losses on and nearby intersections in such shaped fractures,therefore it is necessary to understand and quantify them.In this study,both laboratory experiments and numerical simulations were performed to investigate the total head loss on and nearby the intersections as well as the local head loss exactly on the intersections,which were not usually paid sufficient attention or even ignored.The investigation results show that these two losses account for 29.17%-84.97%and 0-73.57%of the entire total head loss in a fracture,respectively.As a result,they should be necessarily considered for groundwater modeling in fractured rocks.Furthermore,both head losses become larger when aperture and flow rate increase and intersection length decreases.Particularly,the ratios of these two head losses to the entire total head loss in a fracture could be well statistically explained by power regression equations with variables of aperture,intersection length,and flow rates,both of which achieved high coefficients of determination.It could be feasible through this type of study to provide a way on how to adjust the groundwater head from those obtained by numerical simulations based on the traditional linear flow model.Finally,it is practicable and effective to implement the investigation approach combining laboratory experiments with numerical simulations for quantifying the head losses on and nearby the intersections between disc-shaped fractures.