Applied Mathematical Modelling 33 (2009) 35893598

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Applied Mathematical Modelling

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apm

Application of Nelder-Mead simplex method for unconned

seepage problems
Ahad Ouria a,b,*, Mohammad M. Tough a
a
b

Civil Engineering Department, University of Kerman, Iran

Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 5 January 2008
Received in revised form 29 July 2008
Accepted 10 December 2008
Available online 25 December 2008

Keywords:
Unconned seepage
Phreatic line
Nelder-Mead simplex
Finite element method

a b s t r a c t
In unconned seepage problems, the phreatic line resulted from mesh deforming methods
is rarely a smooth and continuous curve. The main problem is at the meeting point of the
phreatic line with the down stream face of the dam where the phreatic line must be tangent to the seepage face according to the uid continuity principle. In this paper a mesh
deforming nite element method based on Nelder-Mead simplex optimization is presented
to solve this problem. The phreatic line is approximated by a 4th degree polynomial and
Nelder-Mead simplex method is used to calculate the polynomials coefcients minimizing
an error function which is introduced based on the conditions on the phreatic line. Tangentiality of the phreatic line to the seepage face is introduced in the solution by a constraint in
optimization procedure. The results of the presented method are veried by the results of
the nonlinear nite element and other mesh deforming methods.
2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Seepage problem is one of the most important issues in design and construction of dams and hydraulic structures. Seepage problems can be categorized into conned and unconned problems. First one refers to problems with known boundaries and the second one refers to problems with unknown boundaries.
Seepage ow through the earth dams and groundwater seepage in unconned aquifer are samples of unconned seepage
problems. In unconned seepage problems determination the location of the phreatic line is the most important step in the
solution. Phreatic line is the boundary of the saturated and unsaturated zones in the problem domain.
Several investigators have suggested various methods to determine the locus of the phreatic line. Kozeny studied
the seepage through an earth dam with a horizontal toe drain resting on an impervious base [1]. Kozeny proposed a
hyperbola for the equation of the phreatic line. Pavlovsky presented the Fragments method to determine the quantity
of seepage and locus of phreatic line in an earth dam resting on an impervious base without a toe lter [2]. In the
Pavlovskys method, the ow domain has been decomposed into three fragments and the hydraulic resistance of the
soil in the upstream side has been considered for nding the ow characteristics. Casagrande made a correction for
the entrance condition at the upstream face of the parabolic phreatic line proposed by Kozeny [3]. Numerov has
analysed seepage through an earth dam having a straight upstream slope face and a toe drain [4]. Mishra and Singh
presented a mathematical method for determination the phreatic line in earth dams and levees with horizontal toe
drainage [5].
* Corresponding author. Address: Civil Engineering Department, University of Kerman, Iran. Tel.: +98 914 311 5642; fax: +98 411 233 1028.
E-mail addresses: aouria@mail.com (A. Ouria), mmtough@yahoo.com (M.M. Tough).
0307-904X/$ - see front matter 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.apm.2008.12.001

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Analytical methods can be applied only for specied geometries and boundary conditions. Application of analytical methods for complex geometries, anisotropic problems and inhomogeneous dams is difcult. In these cases, numerical methods
are applicable.
Numerical methods are used to determine the phreatic line in unconned seepage problems. In the nite element analyses of free surface ow, xed mesh and mesh deforming (adaptive mesh) algorithms are two main approaches.
In the xed mesh algorithms, the hydraulic conductivity of elements is iteratively adjusted within a xed mesh. Decreasing the hydraulic conductivity determines the unsaturated zone and reects the location of the free surface [6].
In the mesh deforming algorithms, hydraulic conductivity of elements are held constant while the mesh is iteratively deformed to match the free surface prole [7,8].
In the xed mesh algorithms the material properties are variable; therefore using such methods requires using the nonlinear nite element methods. In these methods, the dam body is considered to have two saturated and unsaturated zones.
Unsaturated zone includes a transition zone and a dry zone. Hydraulic conductivity of the saturated zone has a constant value. The dry zone is an impervious zone. The value of the hydraulic conductivity decreases within the transition zone (capillarity zone) from its maximum value in the saturated zone to a very small value in the dry zone. In the transition zone, the
hydraulic conductivity of the soil is a function of pressure head. The interface between the transition zone and saturated
zone is the phreatic line.
Fenton and Grifths have presented a mesh deforming algorithm which adjusts the shape of the elements according to
the calculated total heads as the iterations proceed [9].
Mesh deforming methods have simple algorithms that can be implemented easily in the numerical calculations comparing to the xed mesh methods with complicated algorithms. The main disadvantage of the mesh deforming methods is resulted non smooth phreatic line. Also in these methods the resulted phreatic isnt tangent to the down stream face of the
dam which is incompatible with the uid continuity principle.
In this paper we presented a mesh deforming method based on the Nelder-Mead simplex method to solve the unconned
seepage problem in earth dams. The free surface equation is assumed to be a 4th degree polynomial curve. A 4th degree polynomial can be used to apply the required corrections to Kozenys hyperbola proposed by Casagrande in entrance and exit
points. The nite element method is used to calculate the total head values in dam. An error function is introduced based
on the phreatic line conditions. Nelder-Mead simplex method is used to determine polynomials coefcients minimizing
the error function. In this method, tangentiality of the phreatic line to the down stream face of the dam is introduced as
a constraint in the optimization procedure. Therefore the resulted phreatic line is a smooth continuous curve and tangent
to the downstream face of the dam (compatible with the uid continuity principle).

2. Seepage
In this paper only laminar steady-state ow in saturated conditions is considered; therefore Darcys law is applicable
[10].

q krhdA

where, q is discharge vector k, is the hydraulic conductivity, rh is he gradient of the total head and dA is elements area.
With some modications, Darcys law can be used for unsaturated ows as well as saturated ows [6,11,12].
The total head is dened as:

h ph y

where, ph, is the piezometric head or the pressure head and y is the elevation head and is upward oriented.
Considering ow in a vertical xy-plane the following equations can be used [13]:

"
q

qx
qy

"

kx @h
@x

ky @h
@y

In the above equations, dA is assumed to be unit area (dA = 1) for convenient.

Continuity is ensured by requiring that the net volume of the water owing into an element of soil be equal to water owing out of it; therefore, 2D uid continuity equation (for a unit control volume with dx = dy = dz = 1) in steady-state conditions would be as follows:

@qx @qy

0
@x
@y

Substitution of the Eq. (1) in Eq. (4) results the nal form of the continuity as follows:

kx

@2h
@2h

k
0
y
@x2
@y2

where, kx and ky are hydraulic conductivities in the horizontal and vertical directions.

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3. F.E.M formulation
Eq. (5) is a 2D seepage P.D.E which can be solved by the nite element method. The groundwater head at any position
within an element can be expressed in the values at the nodes of that element:

h1

e
6
7
hx; y Nh N1 ; N2 ; :::::Nn 4 h2 5
hn

where N, (x, y) and n, are the interpolation functions vector, coordinates within the elements and the number of nodes for
each element respectively.
According to Eq. (3) the discharge is based on the gradient of the groundwater head. This gradient can be determined by
means of the B-matrix, which contains the spatial derivatives of the interpolation functions.

B rN



@N @N
;
@x @y

In order to describe ow in unsaturated soil (above the phreatic line) as well as saturated soil (under the phreatic line) a
reduction function (Kr) is introduced to apply in Darcys law [6,11,12].
The reduction function has a value of 1 in saturated zone (below the phreatic line where the pressures head is positive). It
has lower values in unsaturated zone (above the phreatic line with negative pressure head) and is a very small quantity
(close to zero) in the dry zone. For numerical calculations, application of the zero value for Kr results zero elements in major
diagonal of the stiffness matrix that causes problems in matrix inversing. For practical proposes, a very small non zero value
is suggested for Kr in the dry zone [13].
The height of the transition zone depends on the soil particle sizes.
A logarithmic form of reduction function can be used to explain the variation of the hydraulic conductivity in the transition zone as follows [13].

logK r

4ph
ht

where, ht, is the height of the transition zone.

Fig. 1 shows the variation of the Kr in the transition zone.
Application of this reduction function in Eq. (3) results:

"
q

qx

qy


K r

kx

ky

" @h #
@x
@h
@y

K r KxyBhe

Equating the Eq. (9) with the nodal discharges and application of the residual schemas such as Galerkin, least square or
minimum potential energy methods results the system of linear equations [7]:

Qe

Z Z

K r BT KxyBhe dxdy

10

Above equation can be expressed in the owing form:

Qe Keh he

11

Fig. 1. Variation of the hydraulic conductivity in transition zone [13].

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A. Ouria, M.M. Tough / Applied Mathematical Modelling 33 (2009) 35893598

where

Keh

Z Z

K r BT KxyBdxdy

12

Eq. (12) is the element stiffness matrix.

[Q]e, is the known nodal discharge vector prescribed by boundary conditions.
Assembling the elements stiffness matrixes and the element external load vectors results the global stiffness matrix and
load vector as follows:

Kh h Q 

13
eh

In Eqs. (11)(13), K and K are the total head dependent element and global stiffness matrixes respectively.
In this section a general procedure is described to formulate the seepage problems for conned and unconned
conditions.
In mesh deforming methods and conned seepage problems, the value of Kr is constant (Kr = 1). In the next coming sections, constant stiffness matrix will be shown with K where:

K r 1 ) K Kh ; Ke Keh

14

In this paper the presented method is a mesh deforming method which uses a constant hydraulic conductivity and stiffness matrix according to Eq. (14).
In unconned problems with xed mesh algorithms, the value of Kr is a function of total head. In the xed mesh methods,
the Eq. (13) is a set of nonlinear equations and an iterative algorithm is required to solve this equation.
4. Nelder-Mead simplex method
A NelderMead simplex optimization algorithm is used in order to optimize the objective function. The simplex algorithm
does not need a derivative; only a numerical evaluation of the objective function is required [14].
The basis for the simplex algorithm comes from geometry as shown in Fig. 2. In three dimensional space, simplex is a
tetrahedron determined by four points (vertices) and their interconnecting line segments. At every point the objective function is evaluated. The point with the highest numerical value of all four points is perpendicularly mirrored against the opposite plain segment. This is called a reection. The reection can be accompanied with an expansion to take larger steps or
with a contraction to shrink the simplex where an optimization valley oor is reached. The optimization procedure continues
until the termination criteria are met. The termination criterion is usually the maximum number of reections with contractions or a tolerance for optimization variables. The algorithm can be implemented in N dimensions, where simplex is a
hypercube with N +1 vertex points [15].
5. Objective function and constraints
In the presented method, dam buddy is considered as two saturated and dry zones. There is not transition zone in this
method. Phreatic line is the interface between the permeable and impermeable zones. Most part of the free surface line
or the phreatic line matches a parabolic curve [1,3]. It is true in the regions far from the ow inward and outward boundaries

Fig. 2. Nelder-Mead simplex for three optimization parameters.

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Fig. 3. Dening the phreatic line and introduced constrains.

[3]. According to the uid continuity principle, the phreatic line must pass trough the downstream face of the dam with a
smooth slope. So it must be tangent to the downstream face of the dam [10]. Also the phreatic line should meet the upstream
face of the dam at the height of the water level in the reservoir according to Fig. 3.
These two conditions introduce two constraints to this problem as follows:

8
< 1 yx1 hw
: 2

dy
dx



tanb

15
xx4

Now we should dene an objective function. The pressure head on the phreatic line is zero. Therefore on the phreatic line,
the total head (h) must be equal to the elevation (y). Based on the least square method an error function can be dened as:

M Z
X

hi  yi 2

16

i1

Where, M is the number of nodes on the phreatic line and is an input parameter.
In the calculation procedure, only the numerical value of the objective function can be calculated. Therefore application of
an optimization method that is independent on objective functions derivatives such as Nelder-Mead simplex method is useful for this problem.
In this paper the equation of the phreatic line is assumed as a fourth degree polynomial with ve unknown coefcients
according to Eq. (17). Therefore in the nite element mesh, the number of nodes on the phreatic line (M) must be 5 or more.

yx a0 a1 x a2 x2 a3 x3 a4 x4

17

Application of two constrains of Eq. (15) in the above equation reduces the number of unknowns to three parameters and
the optimization problem to unconstrained optimization problem.
In this paper the height of the phreatic line in different locations are considered as optimization variables. The coefcients
of the polynomial can be determined based on its heights in different location. Therefore; h2, h3 and, h4 in three equal distances of x2, x3 and, x4 in Fig. 3 are the optimization variables. Application of the heights of the polynomial as optimization
parameters, allows tracking the results during the optimization procedure easily.

x4 h4 cotb
x3 13 x1  x4

18

x2 23 x1  x4
Two constraints are used to dene the height of the phreatic line at two other locations as follows:

1 x x1 ; h h1 hw
2 x5 x4 dx; h5 h4 tanbdx

19

It should be noted that based on the second constraint, a small numerical value for dx is assumed and the numerical value
of divertive at x4 is used to calculate h5.
When the equation of the phreatic line determined, M nodes can be located on the phreatic line in equal horizontal distances. Intersections of the parallel lines to the upstream face of the dam with parallel curves to the phreatic line can be used
to construct the nite element mesh.
A Nelder-Mead simplex code linked to the nite element program developed by authors [16] for numerical calculations.

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Fig. 4. The homogenous isotropic dam of Examples 1, 2 and 3 [9].

6. Numerical results
As the rst example, performance of the presented method is investigated considering an unconned seepage problem in
a homogeneous and isotropic earth dam according to Fig. 4.
The phreatic lines resulted from the presented method for three different set of input parameters are illustrated in Fig. 5.
Three sets of analyses with different starting value of optimization parameters are performed to assure that the optimized
results are corresponding to the global minimum point of the objective function.
It can be seen that despite of different inputs, the resulted phreatic lines are the same. Resulted same phreatic line from
different start points shows the stability of the Nelder-Mead simplex method for this problem [15].
In Table 1, the starting value of parameters and their nal results for three analyses are presented.
In Fig. 6, variation of the error function vs. number of iterations is illustrated. In this gure, vertical axis is the ratio of the
objective function (error) to its initial value at starting point.
In Fig. 6, it can be seen that the algorithm converges after 16, 20 and, 24 iterations for rst, second and third set of input
parameters. The optimum value of the error function is different for these three sets of input parameters while the resulted
phreatic lines are similar. Different length of the phreatic line with a constant number of nodes on the phreatic line causes to
change the location of the nodes where the objective function is calculated. Therefore for similar phreatic lines different values of objective function are calculated.
7. Verication of the presented method
The results of the presented method are compared with the results of the two other methods: (1) A mesh deforming
method presented by Fenton and Grifths [9]. They have suggested an iterative algorithm which adjusts the height of the

Fig. 5. Resulted phreatic lines from the presented method for different starting values for Example 1.

Table 1
Results of the presented method for three different input values.

Starting [h2,h3,h4]
Resulted [h2,h3,h4]
Initial Error
Min. Error
No. of Iter. for min. Error

[3.0, 2.0, 1.0]

[2.55, 2.08, 1.22]
3.35
0.14
16

[3.0, 1.0, 3.0]

[2.65, 2.22, 1.67]
235.7
0.003
20

[2.5, 1.5, 1.0]

[2.55, 2.03, 0.913]
6.92
0.657
24

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Fig. 6. Variation of the objective function vs. number of iteration in Example 1.

nodes in nite element mesh at each iteration based on the resulted total heads from the previous iteration. The algorithm is
specialized to the sloped earth dam problem [9].
(2) Nonlinear nite element method. Nonlinear nite element method can be applied within a xed nite element mesh.
The formulation of this method is same as described in the previous sections but the value of Kr is a function of pressure head
in the unsaturated zone (Fig. 1). Therefore Eq. (13) is a set of nonlinear equations and an iterative algorithm is required for
the solution [6].
Eq. (11) can be rewritten in the following form:

Keh he Keh he Ke he  Ke he

Keh he Ke he  KeU he

20

Considering Eq. (12) and assembling the elements matrixes of Eq. (20), results:

Kh Q  KU h

21

For numerical solution the above equation can be expressed in iterative form as follows [6]:

Khi1  Khi Q  Khi KUi hi

22

where, Kh K  KU

And nally [6]:

Khi1 Q   Khi hi Khi

23

where, i is the number of iteration.

In the iterative solution, for rst iteration Kr = 1 can be assumed then based on the resulted total heads; the value of Kr
calculated and Khi can be updated. This iterative procedure should be continued until jhi1 j  jhi j 6 Err: Err is the user dened acceptable error.
In this paper we have used Plaxis nite element code to verify the results of the presented method. Plaxis software uses
the explained nonlinear nite element algorithm for unconned seepages problems. The height of the transition zone, ht =
0.1m, the minimum value of hydraulic conductivity reduction factor, Kr = 104 in unsaturated zone and Err = 0.01 are introduced in Plaxis.
The result of the rst example in the previous section is presented by Fenton and Grifths [9].
The results of the presented method, nonlinear nite element method (Plaxis) and mesh deforming method [9] are illustrated in Figs. 7a, b and c, respectively.
It can be seen in Fig. 7 that there is a good correspondence between the results of the presented and the nonlinear nite
element methods (Plaxis). The number of iterations in the mesh renement method are about 1213 iterations while in the
presented method its about 1618 iterations. N.L.F.E method converged after 17 iterations. The amount of the required calculations in the presented method is not more than other methods.
In Fig. 8, resulted phreatic lines from the presented, mesh renement, and, N.L.F.E methods are illustrated.
It can be seen in Fig. 8 that the resulted phreatic line from the presented method is close to the phreatic line resulted from
the nonlinear nite element method. Considering the meeting points of the phreatic lines with the downstream face of the
dam shows that the results of the presented method and Plaxis satisfy the boundary condition while the results of the mesh
renement method [9] dose not satisfy this condition. Resulted phreatic line from mesh deforming method is not tangent to
the down stream face of the dam while based on the uid continuity principle; the phreatic line must be tangent to the down
stream face of the dam [10].

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Fig. 7. Results of the presented (a), nonlinear nite element (b) and mesh deforming method (c) for Example 1.

Fig. 8. Resulted phreatic lines from the presented (a), nonlinear nite element (b) and mesh deforming method (c) for Example 1.

As the second example, earth dam of the rst example is considered with a horizontal drain running along the dam base
from the centerline to the downstream face. The result of the presented method, Plaxis and mesh deformation method [9]
are illustrated in Fig. 9a, b and c, respectively.
As illustrated in Fig. 9, results of the presented method are close to the results of the nonlinear nite element method
(Plaxis). The resulted phreatic line from the mesh deforming method is incompatible with the drained boundary condition.
Phreatic line must be perpendicular to the horizontal drainage [10]. In these analyses the number of iterations for presented,
Plaxis and mesh deformation methods were about 16-20, 15, and 20-23 respectively.
In isotropic earth dams (kx = ky), the location of the phreatic line is independent on the hydraulic conductivity of the soil
[10]. But in anisotropic earth dams, the ratio of hydraulic conductivity (kx/ky) affects the location of the phreatic line [10]. In
the third example, the model of the example 2 with horizontal drainage, is considered with anisotropic hydraulic conductivity (kx = 4ky). Fig. 10 shows the resulted phreatic line for anisotropic dam. In this gure, resulted phreatic line from
the presented method is compared with the resulted phreatic line from nonlinear nite element method (Plaxis).
As illustrated in Fig. 10, the resulted phreatic line from presented method is close to the resulted phreatic line form nonlinear nite element method.
The resulted phreatic lines are not coincide in this gure, because these two phreatic lines are the results of the two different assumptions. In the presented method there isnt a transition zone in unsaturated zone. But the results of the two
methods are in the same range.

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Fig. 9. Results of the presented (a), nonlinear nite element (b) and mesh deforming method (c) with horizontal toe drainage for Example 2.

Fig. 10. Resulted phreatic lines from the presented and nonlinear nite elements methods for an anisotropic dam without horizontal toe drainage for
Example 3.

As another alternative, the problem of ow through a rectangular isotropic earth dam is investigated in the fourth example. Solutions of this problem are presented in literature [6,17,18]. In Fig. 11, the results of the presented method (a) and
nonlinear nite element method (b) are illustrated.
It can be seen that the most parts of the resulted phreatic lines are similar. There is a sensible difference between these
phreatic lines next to the down stream face of the dam. It can be seen that in the presented method, the resulted phreatic line
is tangent to the down stream face of the dam which is according to the uid continuity principal. In the other methods, this
condition cant be satised easily.
Comparing the groundwater distributions resulted from the presented and nonlinear nite element methods, shows that
there are some differences in the resulted groundwater head distribution next to the down stream face of the dam (Fig. 7 and
Fig. 11). In the presented method, groundwater head or total head on the seepage face is introduced as boundary conditions
(h = y) therefore these values are not calculated in the presented method. In the nonlinear nite element method, because
there is not a boundary condition on seepage face, groundwater head on the seepage face is calculated based on the other
boundary conditions. The results of the presented method in this domain are more accurate than the results of the nonlinear
nite element method because they are calculated based on the existing boundary conditions.

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Fig. 11. Results of the presented (a) and nonlinear nite element (b) methods for an isotropic rectangular dam for Example 4.

8. Conclusion
In this paper, a mesh deforming method based on the Nelder-Mead simplex and nite element methods presented to calculate the location of the phreatic line in unconned seepage problems. In mesh deforming methods the resulted phreatic
lines can not satiety the boundary condition in the intersection point of the phreatic line with the down stream face of the
dam. Based on the continuity principle, the phreatic line must be tangent to the down stream face of the dam. This condition
is introduced in the presented method as a constraint in the optimization procedure which maintains the compatibility of
the phreatic line with the continuity principle.
Performance of the presented method is investigated for isotropic and anisotropic problems with different geometries. In
the presented method the resulted phreatic line is a continuous smooth curve compatible with the boundary conditions and
uid continuity principle. This research shows that the constrained optimization procedure can be used to improve the mesh
deforming methods for unconned seepage problems.
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[14]
[15]
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