COMPUTATION OF SEEPAGE LOSS IN AN EMBANKMENT DAM

Seepage Analysis:
Seepage, in soil engineering, movement of water in soils, often a critical problem in building
foundations. Seepage depends on several factors, including permeability of the soil and the
pressure gradient, essentially the combination of forces acting on water through gravity and other
factors. Permeability can vary over a wide range, depending on soil structure and composition,
making possible the safe design of such structures as earth dams and reservoirs with negligible
leakage loss, and other structures such as roadbeds and filtration beds in which rapid drainage is
desirable.

Flow Nets
Graphical form of solutions to Laplace equation for two-dimensional seepage can be presented
as flow nets. Two orthogonal sets of curves form a flow net:

 Equipotential lines connecting points of equal total head h

 Flow lines indicating the direction of seepage down a hydraulic gradient

Two flow lines can never meet and similarly, two equipotential lines can never meet. The space
between two adjacent flow lines is known as a flow channel, and the figure formed on the
flownet between any two adjacent flow lines and two adjacent equipotential lines is referred to as
a field. Seepage through an embankment dam is shown.

The most common boundary conditions are:

(a) A submerged permeable soil boundary is an equipotential line. This could have been
determined by considering imaginary standpipes placed at the soil boundary, as for every point
the water level in the standpipe would be the same as the water level. (Such a boundary is
marked as CD and EF in the following figure.)

(b) The boundary between permeable and impermeable soil materials is a flow line (This is
marked as AB in the same figure).
(c) Equipotential lines intersecting a phreatic surface do so at equal vertical intervals.

The graphical properties of a flow net can be used in obtaining solutions for many seepage
problems such as:

1. Estimation of seepage losses from reservoirs: It is possible to use the flow net in the
transformed space to calculate the flow underneath the dam.

2. Determination of uplift pressures below dams: From the flow net, the pressure head at any
point at the base of the dam can be determined. The uplift pressure distribution along the base
can be drawn and then summed up.

3. Checking the possibility of piping beneath dams: At the toe of a dam when the upward exit
hydraulic gradient approaches unity, boiling condition can occur leading to erosion in soil and
consequent piping. Many dams on soil foundations have failed because of a sudden formation of
a piped shaped discharge channel. As the stored water rushes out, the channel widens and
catastrophic failure results. This is also often referred to as piping failure.

GEOTECHNICAL DATA
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Normative D.M. 88/96
Width of Embankment at bottom 70.0 m
Width of Embankment at top 10.0 m
Depth of Silt level 5.0 m
Embankment Height 15.0 m
Reservoir Level 15.0 m
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SOIL STRATIGRAPHY

Layer Unit Saturated Angle Cohesion Undrained Elastic Oedomet Poisson

thickness weight unit of [kN/m²] cohesion modulus ric Ratio
[m] [kN/m³] weight friction [kN/m²] [kN/m²] modulus
[kN/m³] [°] [kN/m²]
5.0 17.50 18.60 15.0 1.96 0.0 2499.72 2599.74 0.35
10.0 18.15 19.60 16.0 20.05 35.3 0.0 4314.93 0.45
BOUNDARY CONDITIONS
1. Reservoir Level at upstream side upto 15m from the bottom layer. It is represented by
a blue color line on below figure.
2. Similarly, Seepage face is represented at downstream side of embankment by a green
color line.
3. And the zero pressure point or face is applied at bottom of downstream face of
embankment.
A steady state seepage analysis is to be performed on SEEP/W tool for that modelling and
material properties. The variations in total stress along the length of embankment and also with
depth.

The direction of vector arrow represents a flow of water through soil media. And blue color
dotter line represents the phreatic line of seepage.
The variations in pore water pressure beneath the depth of embankment is expressed as a graph
on below figure. In practically, the pore water pressure is maximum at bottom of dam or
reservoir structure and minimum at top surface of water level.