3/15/2020

SEEPAGE

Fathiyah Hakim Sagitaningrum, ST, MT

Course Learning Outcome (CLO):

Able to calculate the effect of groundwater table and
seepage for shallow foundation bearing capacity

Indicator:
Able to analyze the pore water pressure due to 
seepage under the water dam

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Contents

Seepage
• What is seepage?
• Darcy Law
• What is flownet?

Flownet
• How to draw flownet?
• On sheet pile
• On water dams

Seepage
What is seepage?

– Hydrology: flow of seepage is flow of water/liquid inside the permeable soil 
such as sands
– Soil Mechanics: water movements inside the soil
– When seepage happened with high velocity, erosion might happen due to the 
frictions that happened between the soil particles

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Seepage
Darcy’s Law
Hydraulic Gradient (i):
∆ℎ
𝑖
𝐿
With:
∆ℎ ℎ ℎ

Seepage
Darcy’s Law
Discharge Velocity (v) :
𝑣 𝑘𝑖
Flow rate (q):
𝑞 𝑣𝐴
With:
k = hydraulic conductivity
i = hydraulic gradient
A = section area

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Seepage
What is flownet?
Graphical representation 
from water flow (usually 
from the groundwater 
table) in two dimension 
through aquifer or through 
soil mass in general. Usually 
it looks curvilinear with 
combinations of flow line 
and equipotential line

Seepage
Sheet Pile

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Seepage
Dam

Seepage
Earth Dam

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Flownet
How to draw it? – Boundary Condition

– The boundary conditions have to be fulfilled
– Flow lines have to cut through the equipotential lines in a perpendicular angle
– Area of flow lines and equipotential lines need to be in a curvilinear rectangle, which is a 
rectangle where you can draw a perfect circle with its sides touching the rectangle
– Quantity of each flow channel that are flowing is considered constant
– Head loss that happened in each equipotential line sequentially is considered constant
– Flow line cannot intersect other flow lines
– Equipotential line cannot intersect other equipotential lines

Flownet
How to draw it? – Sheet Pile Case

– Draw the system with scales
– AB and CD is considered to be the 
equipotential line due to its constant 
total head
– From point B, water needs to flow 
downward from the upstream face BE, 
circling the end of E and go upward to 
the downstream of EC
– FG and BEX is the flow lines due to the 
water from point F that need to flow 
through the impermeable FG
– Try to sketch the flownet
– Remember that the section of flow lines 
needs to make a curvilinear rectangle

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Flownet
Flownet interpretation

– Head loss:
∆𝐻
∆ℎ
𝑁
– Flow Rate:
𝑁
𝑞 𝐴𝑘𝑖 𝑘∆𝐻
𝑁
– With:
– Nf = Sum of flow line
– Nd = Sum of equipotential line
– ∆H = total head loss

Flownet
Flownet Interpretation

– The anisotropic condition is simply a condition where the value of permeability 
in the x and y direction are not the same. Thus, the permeability coefficient of 
the soil is modified into (k’):

𝑘 𝑘 𝑘

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How to calculate the pore water pressure in

one of the points and its uplift force?

How to calculate the pore

water pressure in one of the
points and its uplift force?

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Flownet
Through Earth Dam

– Parabola:  the cone is the slice of the surface of the circular cone with 
a flat area.
Parabola: locus of points that has a same distance from a fixed point 
(focus), and a line (directrix)

Flownet
Through Earth Dam

Drawing the parabola
– Horizontal Discharge Face P
1. GS = 0.3 HS
2. F as the focus point 
of the main parabola
3. GF = GI
4. IE as directrix
5. 0E = 0F = 0.5 EF
6. FL = LM

According to coordinates:
y2=2Px

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Flownet
Through Earth Dam

– Sloping discharge face

Flownet
Through Earth Dam

– Downstream correction for Base Parabola:

a
a basic parabola
K K
basic parabola M filter
M
 D  D
A A a

filter a

ß 30° 60° 90° 120° 150° 180°

a/a 0.36 0.32 0.26 0.18 0.10 0

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Non-Homogeny Soil Condition

– Two layers can be simplified into one anisotropic 
layer (H1+H2) with permeability coefficient of 𝑘
and 𝑘

H1 H 1 k1  H 2 k 2
k1 kx 
z H1  H 2
H H 
H2 k2 k y  ( H 1  H 2 ) /  1  2 
x  k1 k2 

Model of
Flownet in
SEEP/W

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How to accommodate
Seepage

Piping
Internal erosion in foundation or embankment due to
seepage. The erosion happens from the downstream foot to
the reservoir which makes ‘pipes’ under the dam

– Cutoff Walls
– Impermeable cores
– Impermeable blankets extending upstream from the upstream face
Internal drain systems to reduce PWP in downstream and control seepage which 
happens in downstream/reduce erosion
– Toe drains
– Horizontal drainage blankets
– Chimney drains
– Think upstream sloping core
– Partial cutoffs
Source:
https://community.dur.ac.uk/~des0www4/cal/dams/emba/seep.htm

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Contoh Soal

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THANK YOU!

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