An Analytical Method for Groundwater Inflow

into a Drained Circular Tunnel

by Kai Su1,2 , Yafeng Zhou2,3 , Hegao Wu2 , Changzheng Shi2 , and Li Zhou2

Abstract
Groundwater inflow estimation is essential for the design and construction of tunnel and the assessment of the environmental
impacts. Analytical solutions used in current engineering practice do not adequately account for the effect of the excavation-induced
drawdown, which leads to significant change in pore water pressure distribution and reductions of the water level beyond tunnel.
Based on the numerical analysis results, this article proposes semianalytical method to predict the height of lowered water level and
groundwater tunnel inflow. The tunnel problem is conceptualized as two-dimensional flow in a plane perpendicular to the tunnel
axis. The analytical formula, considering the effect of the excavation-induced drawdown, provides a better prediction of the tunnel
inflow compared to the existing analytical formulas, even for the cases with inclined groundwater level.

Introduction the underground water influence when the minor inflow

The prediction of groundwater inflow into tunnels
or shafts is an important and challenging issue for the
tunnel engineering, the oil and gas industry, and nuclear
waste disposal programs. The estimation of groundwater
inflow is needed for the design and construction of
various underground excavations and the assessment
of the environmental impacts.
Generally, there is much greater water inflow during
tunnel construction than the steady state. However, the
inflow under steady state plays a more important role
on tunnel safety than the inflow of the construction as
the latter often addresses a short duration and it could be
drained with temporary facilities. Meanwhile the quantity
of the inflow under steady state is the main reference of
the design standards of the tunnel drain system. Moreover,
the sizes of common tunnels in longitudinal direction are
much greater than the sizes of tunnel transverse section
and the cross-section inflow is often employed to evaluate
1 Corresponding author: State Key Laboratory of Water
Resources and Hydropower Engineering Science, Wuhan University,
299 BaYi Road, Wuhan 430072, China; +86 138 86041751; fax:
+86 027 68772310; suker8044@163.com
2 alternative boundary conditions (zero water pressure and
State Key Laboratory of Water Resources and Hydropower
Engineering Science, Wuhan University, 299 BaYi Road, Wuhan
430072, China.
3
Changjiang Institute of Survey, Planning, Design and
Research, Changjiang Water Resources Commission, 1863 Jiefang
Avenue, Wuhan 430010, China.
Article Impact Statement: A semianalytical formula is
proposed to provide a better prediction of the tunnel inflow.
Received September 2016, accepted February 2017.
© 2017, National Ground Water Association.
doi: 10.1111/gwat.12513
along the tunnel axes is usually omitted.
A great number of analytical solutions have been
developed to predict and calculate groundwater inflow
into a circular tunnel. Goodman et al. (1965) obtained
a simple approximative analytical equation for tunnel
inflow into a horizontal tunnel in a homogeneous,
isotropic and semi-infinite aquifer using the image well
method. In contrast to this widespread solution, Lei
(1999) and Kolymbas and Wagner (2007) rederived the
inflow rate formula with wider application for both
deep and shallow tunnels. Zhang and Franklin (1993)
took into account the varying hydraulic conductivity
of medium to predict the groundwater inflow, and the
proposed analytical solution can be regarded as an
extension of the solution of Goodman et al. (1965). El
Tani (2003) presented an analytical expression for exact
gravity water inflow into a circular tunnel in a semi-
infinite, homogeneous and isotropic aquifer, which is
based on Mobius-transformation and Fourier series, and
the derived equation has a large field of applicability.
Park et al. (2008) revisited the closed-form analytical
solutions within a common theoretical framework for two
a constant total head) along the tunnel circumference by
using the conformal mapping technique and compared
two approximate existing solutions for the steady-state
groundwater inflow into a drained circular tunnel in a
semi-infinite aquifer. El Tani (2010) presented a unique
closed analytical solution of the modified Helmholtz
equation for predicting the water inflow under the transient
consolidation and the steady state of a semi-infinite,
heterogeneous aquifer.

NGWA.org Groundwater 1
 However, compared with the measured data and
numerical solutions, many researchers pointed out that
the analytical equations provided highly overestimated
values of water inflow. There are various factors, such
as inadequate consideration of the jointed rock mass
anisotropy and heterogeneity (Coli et al. 2008; Gattinoni
and Scesi 2010), large joint closure and excavation-
induced hydraulic conductivity variation in the vicinity of
a tunnel (Fernandez and Moon 2010). Another key factor,
which has a significant influence on the water inflow,
is the excavation-induced drawdown (Anagnostou 1995;
Hwang and Lu 2007; Moon and Fernandez 2010). As the
groundwater flows into the unlined or drainage tunnel, the
phreatic surface can be maintained at a roughly constant
level if there is sufficient recharge. In common, there
is insufficient recharge to balance the amount of water
flowing into an excavation when the phreatic surface is
lowered and a drawdown regime emerges. Therefore, the
traditional analytical solutions, which assume that the
groundwater table remains at the initial level throughout
the tunnel excavation, seem to be unreasonable. The
groundwater inflow would have a discount as the reduc-
tion of the hydraulic head from the tunnel, the discount
could be up to 20 to 40% of the initial water level, which
will be shown later. Considering the excavation-induced
drawdown, Moon and Fernandez (2010) provided an
analytical method for estimating the groundwater inflow
into a tunnel based on an adjusted mirror image tunnel
method in which the lowered groundwater level after
excavation is adopted. However, the unique and shortest
vertical level of lowered underground water upon the
tunnel top arch was used in the solution (Moon and
Fernandez 2010), which will underestimate the inflow rate
with considerable errors. The reasonable water level used
to calculate the water inflow would be between initial
underground water level and the lowered water level.
Generally, because the lowered water level is unknown,
the solution of water inflow with lowered water level
could only be achieved after lowered water level done,
which would bring new obstacle for analytical solutions.
In this article, we will present a numerical study
to analyze the effect of excavation-induced drawdown
on water inflow into the tunnel. The tunnel inflows
calculated by various analytical methods are compared. In
particular, based on the widely used Goodman equation
(Goodman et al. 1965) and the numerical solutions with
finite element method, the study develops a semianalytical
method to predict groundwater tunnel inflow considering
both the initial water level and the lowered water level
after the solution of lowered water level is presented.
As will be shown, the new solution reduces the error in
calculated inflow.
Definition of the Problem
A schematic representation of a circular tunnel in a
semi-infinite aquifer with infinite width and depth under
a horizontal water table is shown in Figure 1. The tunnel
problem is conceptualized as a two-dimensional flow
2 K. Su et al. Groundwater
Figure 1. Circular tunnel profile: H , the depth from ground
surface to the initial water table; h, the initial piezometric
head above the tunnel center; h, drawdown of the water
level; h, the lowered piezometric head above the tunnel
center; r, tunnel radius.
problem in a plane perpendicular to the tunnel axis. The
following assumptions are made: (1) The surrounding rock
has the homogeneous and isotropic permeability; (2) the
fluid is incompressible; and (3) there is no flow along
the tunnel axis (and no flow across the tunnel advance
face). According to Darcy’s law and mass conservation,
the two-dimensional groundwater flow around the tunnel
is described by the following Laplace equation,
∂ 2ϕ ∂ 2ϕ
+ =0 (1)
∂x 2 ∂y 2
where ϕ is the hydraulic head.
p
ϕ= +Z (2)
γw
where p is the pressure, γ w is the unit weight of water,
Z is the elevation head defined as the vertical distance
of a given point below the datum plane. Herein, the
groundwater level is chosen as the elevation reference
datum. The boundary condition at the groundwater level
is expressed as follows,
ϕ(y=h) = 0 (3)
The boundary condition at the tunnel perimeter in the
case of the unlined or drainage tunnel is expressed as
ϕ(r) = y (4)
where y is the vertical coordinate value.
The exact solution of groundwater inflow, Q 0 , which
is the volume of water per unit time and per unit
tunnel length into tunnels, is calculated with the initial
piezometric head h (El Tani 2003):
λ2 − 1 h
Q0 = 2π k (5)
λ2 + 1 ln λ
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h h2
λ= − −1 (6)
r r2
where k is the hydraulic conductivity of the medium.
From the solution Equation 5, several approximate
solutions can be obtained with specific assumptions, such
as considering a uniform hydraulic head at the tunnel
perimeter or in the case of deep tunnels (h > > r).
Table 1 presents a list of the approximate solutions of
the groundwater inflow.
The differences between the above approximate
formulae and the exact analytical solution (Equation 5)
of water inflow are evaluated with Equation 7 and plotted
in Figure 2, showing an increase of the differences with
the decrease of the tunnel depth. For the deep tunnel,
r/h ≤ 0.2, the ratio is less than 1.1. However, for shallow Figure 2. The various approximations, Q a , (Q Ka , Karlsrud
2001; Q LK , Lei 1999; Kolymbas and Wagner 2007; Q Go ,
tunnel, the error becomes more significant. In contrast, the Goodman et al. 1965; Q ZF , Zhang and Franklin 1993; Q El ,
Goodman equation (Goodman et al. 1965) seems to give El Tani 1999), against the exact analytical solution of water
relatively stable results. inflow Q 0 (El Tani 2003) with the initial piezometric head h.

Qa
δ=
Q0
where Q a is the water inflow approximation.
Numerical Analysis
The commercially available finite element software
(ABAQUS) is used in this study to calculate the tunnel
inflow considering the excavation-induced drawdown.
The software of ABAQUS is currently one of the most
powerful nonlinear finite element analysis implement in
the world. Some common problems, such as saturated
or partially saturated flow, multiphase flow, moisture
migration, combined heat transfer and pore fluid flow,
can be analyzed with ABAQUS. The porous medium
(7)
is modeled in the paper by attaching the finite element
mesh to the solid phase; fluid can flow through this fixed
mesh. The porous medium for this study was modeled in
ABAQUS as flow of two fluids. One is the wetting liquid,
assumed to be incompressible, and the other is the gas,
treated as compressible.
A two-dimensional numerical mesh is created with
a 10 m diameter tunnel excavated at 70 to 350 m below
the ground surface from the tunnel center, as shown in
Figure 3. When the extent of the numerical model (from
the tunnel center to the vertical and bottom boundaries) is
not less than 50 times the diameter (D) (Zhou et al. 2014),
the influence of the boundaries on the tunnel water inflow
and pore pressure distribution can be omitted. Therefore,
the extent of the numerical model is chose as 50D in this

Table 1
Approximate Solutions of the Groundwater Inflow

Literature Formula Description

Goodman et al. (1965) QGo = 2π k h

Initial water level, deep tunnels, homogeneous,
ln 2h
r
isotropic and semi-infinite aquifer
Zhang and Franklin (1993) QZF = 2π k  h
2
Initial water level, varying hydraulic conductivity of
ln 1+ 4h2 medium in jointed rock deep tunnels
r
Lei (1999); Kolymbas and QLK = 2π k  h
  Initial water level, for both deep and shallow tunnels
ln hr + h 2 −1
Wagner (2007) r2
 2
1−3 2hr
El Tani (1999) QEl = 2π kh   2   2 Initial water level, tunnels of circular, elliptical or
r ln 2h r
1− 2h r − 2h square cross-sections, non-homogeneous aquifer
Karlsrud (2001) QKa = 2π k  h  Initial water level, homogeneous, isotropic and
ln 2hr −1
 
semi-infinite aquifer
k 2Ry h -h 2
Moon and Fernandez (2010)1 QMF1 = Rx -r (shallow tunnel) Lowered water level, using permeability reduction of
QMF2 = 2π k h2h (deep tunnel) medium, for both deep and shallow tunnels
ln r

1R
x is the horizontal influence distance of groundwater level drawdown from the center of tunnel, and R y is the vertical influence distance of groundwater level
drawdown from the initial groundwater level.

NGWA.org K. Su et al. Groundwater 3


Figure 3. Numerical model (tunnel diameter D = 10 m, the
depth from ground surface to the initial water table H =
50 m, the initial piezometric head above the tunnel center
h = 20 − 300 m).
study. The initial groundwater level is located at 50 m
below the ground surface and the permeability of the
surrounding rock is 1.0 × 10−7 m/s.
The distributions of pore water pressure at various
times after excavation are shown in Figure 4, which
Figure 4. Water level and pore water pressure with time after excavation (h = 300 m), (a) 1 day, (b) 5 day, (c) 10 day, and
(d) 20 day.
4 K. Su et al. Groundwater
represents a tunnel located at 300 m below the initial
groundwater level. The results show that a drawdown
has been induced by the tunnel excavation. When the
excavation is completed, it immediately triggers a sudden
decrease of the pore water pressure near the tunnel and the
water table depresses about 25 m after 1 day for the con-
ditions simulated. Then the cone of drawdown expands
with time and the pore water pressure around the tunnel
decreases due to the gradually reduced groundwater level.
After about 20 days, the pore water pressure tends to a
steady state and the groundwater level drops by 79 m.
The drawdown results in a significant reduction in
pore water pressure, which in turn reduces the hydraulic
gradient around the tunnel and consequently decreases the
inflow rate into the opening.
The distributions of pore water pressure vertically
from the tunnel top arch and horizontally from the tunnel
sidewall at 5 days and 20 days after excavation are shown
in Figure 5. As indicated in Figure 5a and c, the pore
water pressure at 5 day and 20 day equals to zero at the
tunnel top arch because of the drainage effect on the tunnel
opening. With the increase of distance from the tunnel
top arch, the pore water pressure increases sharply to the
peak value and then gradually decreases. The groundwater
drawdown ranges from 56.7 m (h = 100 m) to 79 m
(h = 300 m) estimated at 20 days after excavation. In
Figure 5b and d, the pore water pressure increases with the
NGWA.org
Figure 5. Pore water pressure in various tunnel depth conditions: (a) and (b) 5day; (c) and (d) 20day.

distance from the tunnel sidewall. There is an approximate

50% drop of the initial pore water pressure occurring
within 5D away from the tunnel sidewall at a steady-state
condition.

Discussion
The numerical results are compared with the widely
used Goodman equation (Goodman et al. 1965) assuming
a constant groundwater elevation throughout the tunnel
excavation and the modified analytical solutions by Moon
and Fernandez (2010) using the lowered water level (see
Figure 6).
As showed in Figure 6, the tunnel inflow decreases
gradually with the increasing value of r/h, which is upper-
bounded by Goodman et al. (1965) while lower-bounded
by Moon and Fernandez (2010). The underlying reason
is that the initial groundwater level is assumed constant Figure 6. Tunnel water inflow envelopment by Goodman
formula (Goodman et al. 1965) and Moon and Fernandez
in the Goodman formula (Goodman et al. 1965), thus the formula (Moon and Fernandez 2010), the numerical analysis
hydraulic head remains at a relative large value and the result locates well inside the envelopment and the permeabil-
tunnel inflow is overestimated. When the lowered ground- ity k of 1 × 10−7 m/s is used.
water level is used in the Moon and Fernandez formula
(Moon and Fernandez 2010), the hydraulic head acted on
the tunnel perimeter is the shortest vertical distance of inflow must be considered. First, the factors that affect
the lowered water level beyond the tunnel top arch such the lowered water level are analyzed, including the
that this method obtains the underestimated values. tunnel radius, the height of initial water level, and the
permeability of the surrounding rock. The tunnel radius
Lowered Water Level is taken as 2.5, 3.5, 5.0, and 7.5 m, and the rock
In order to modify the formula for tunnel inflow permeability is set to 1.0 × 10−6 , 1.0 × 10−7 , 1.0 × 10−8 ,
prediction, the effect of groundwater drawdown on tunnel and 1.0 × 10−9 m/s.

NGWA.org K. Su et al. Groundwater 5

Figure 7. Relation curves of h/h and r/h with (a) h = 300 m, (b) h = 200 m, (c) h = 150 m, and (d) h = 100 m.

The distribution of pore water pressures with varying

tunnel radius r (2.5, 3.5, 5.0, and 7.5 m), varying initial
water level h (100, 150, 200, and 300 m) and fixed perme-
ability of 1.0 × 10−7 m/s is calculated. The dimensionless
heights of the lowered water levels h/ h at the steady state
are plotted in Figure 7. The results show that the ground-
water drawdown h/ h induced by the tunnel excavation
decreases with the increasing tunnel radius r/h, and h/ h
could be expressed as an exponential function of r/h.
To study the influence of rock permeability on the
lowered water level, the seepage fields are calculated for
different permeability values but the same tunnel radius
of 5.0 m. The ratios of the lowered water level to the
initial water level h/ h at the steady state are plotted in
Figure 8, showing that for a given value of r/h, the values
of h/ h are almost the same for different permeability
values of the surrounding rock. Therefore, the influence
Figure 8. Change of lowered water level under different
of rock permeability on the lowered water level h/ h is permeability of surrounding rock with r = 5.0 m.
much smaller than the effect of r/h.
Based on the above calculation results, it is found that
the height of the lowered water level is mainly affected
by the ratio of the tunnel radius r to the initial water where hE is the lowered water level height calculated
level height h, and can be described with an exponential by the proposed analytical formula, and a and b are
function of r/h: coefficients that can be determined by data fitting to the
numerical curves, with a = 1 and b = 1.83r − 27.31 in this
r
hE = aeb h h, hr < 0.1 study.
(8) In order to validate the analytical formula for
hE = 0, hr ≥ 0.1 estimating the lowered water level, Figure 9 compares the

6 K. Su et al. Groundwater NGWA.org

 
Figure 10. Relations curves of hE /h and r/h with the
permeability of 1.0 × 10−7 m/s.
Figure 9. Lowered water level by the analytical formula, h E ,
against results by the numerical analysis, h NM , in various
tunnel depth conditions. Dashed line is the exact match line
between the analytical and numerical values.

analytical results with the numerical solutions for various

tunnel depths, showing that the analytical results are in
good agreement with the numerical solutions.

Water Inflow Solutions

Given the fact that the height of the lowered water
level is affected by the tunnel radius and the initial water
level height, the seepage water head for tunnel inflow
can be defined as a function of the tunnel radius and the
initial water level. An analytical formula for tunnel inflow
is proposed after Goodman et al. (1965) as follows:

QE = 2π k 1
hE
ln 2h
r (9)

hE = f (r, h)
Figure 11. The tunnel inflow by the analytical formula, Q E ,

where Q E is the tunnel inflow, hE is the virtual water against results by the numerical analysis, Q NM , in various
 tunnel depth conditions. Dashed line is the exact match line
head used in the water flow formula, with hE < hE < h,
between the analytical and numerical values.
and hE is the lowered water level height calculated by the
proposed analytical formula.
Based on the numerical simulation results of Q with Substituting Equation 10 into Equation 9 yields the
various values of r and h, Equation 9 can be used to analytical formula for water inflow Q:

back-calculate the values of hE , as plotted in Figure 10,
where the permeability of the surrounding rock is taken as r −0.014r−0.22
0.3 h
1.0 × 10−7 m/s. It is found that for a given tunnel radius, QE = 2π k h
(11)

the virtual water head hE normalized by the initial water ln 2h
r
level h increases with the initial water level, and can be
It should be noted that Equation 11 for Q E is obtained
described with a power function of r/h:
with a given model size of 50D. When the model size

 r n is larger than 50D, there may be slight differences in the
hE = m h (10) best-fitted values for the coefficients of m and n while the
h
acceptable estimations for the tunnel inflows are achieved.
where m and n are coefficients to be determined with Figure 11 shows a comparison between the analytical
curve fitting to the numerical data, with m = 0.3 and predictions of Q E and the corresponding numerical
n = −0.014r − 0.22 in this study. solutions for different tunnel radii and initial water levels,

NGWA.org K. Su et al. Groundwater 7


Figure 12. Circular tunnel under an inclined groundwater
level: h, the initial piezometric head above the tunnel center
in vertical; h, the lowered piezometric head above the tunnel
center in vertical; h v , the initial piezometric head above the
tunnel center in perpendicular; α, dip angle of the inclined
water level.
Figure 13. Lowered water level and pore water pressure with time when α = 21.80◦ : (a) 1 day, (b) 5 day, (c) 10 day, and
(d) 20 day.
8 K. Su et al. Groundwater
showing that the semianalytical results are well consistent
with the numerical simulations, with a maximum relative
error smaller than 5%. However, the estimation error
of Q Go by Goodman et al. (1965) is much larger, up
to 50.1% at r/h = 0.0714, 67.5% at r/h = 0.1, 81%
at r/h = 0.125 and 102% at r/h = 0.1667, respectively.
Similarly, the estimation error for water inflow by
Moon and Fernandez (2010) increases from 22.8% at
r/h = 0.067 to 59.7% at r/h = 0.1, 75.8% at r/h = 0.1667
and 84.4% at r/h = 0.250, respectively. This comparative
study suggests that the proposed semianalytical formula
has much better performance compared to the existing
models, with acceptable accuracy for practical use.
Inclined Groundwater Level
The water inflow problem with inclined groundwater
level is shown in Figure 12. The vertical depth of the
initial piezometric head above the tunnel center, h, is fixed
at 300 m. The dip angle of the inclined water level, α, is a
variable and ranges from 14.03◦ to 21.80◦ and 28.37◦ . h v
is the perpendicular depth of the initial piezometric head
above the tunnel center. After the tunnel excavation, the
groundwater table goes down and h is the vertical depth
of the lowered piezometric head above the tunnel center.
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Figure 14. Comparison of tunnel inflows under different
dip angle α of inclined groundwater level: Q M , Mod-
ified equation (El Tani 2003); Q E , Empirical formula
(Equation 11); Q NM , Numerical analysis (ABAQUS).
Figure 13 shows the pore water pressure after
excavation for α = 21.80◦ . As time goes by, the pore
water pressure around the tunnel gradually decreases. The
inclined water level drawdown after tunnel excavation
reaches a steady condition after about 20 days.
As for the tunnel inflow estimation with inclined
water level, El Tani (2003) made a modification for this
case in which the analytical equation for water inflow was
multiplied by cos α. That is to say that the vertical depth
of the initial piezometric head above the tunnel center, h,
is redefined as the perpendicular distance of the initial
piezometric head above the tunnel center. According
to this principle, the traditional analytical equation is
modified as follows,
h hv
QM = 2π k cos α = 2π k (12)
ln 2h
r ln 2h
r As for the water inflow problem with inclined
Based on the results obtained from the numeri-
cal models described above, some key parameters are
summarized and the tunnel inflows obtained through
modified equation (El Tani 2003), analytical formula
(Equation 11) and numerical analysis (ABAQUS) are plot-
ted in Figure 14. As the increase of dip angle of the
inclined water level, the perpendicular distance of the
inclined water table beyond the tunnel center decreases
such that the modified analytical solution, Q M , decreases
correspondingly. In addition, the values indicate the
depths of the lowered groundwater level beyond the tunnel
center almost equal to each other under different dip angle
of inclination such that the tunnel inflows calculated by
the semianalytical formula, Q E , have a small difference.
In contrast, the modified analytical solution based on
El Tani (2003) provides inaccurate values of tunnel inflow
as there is overestimation of the inclined water level
influence by multiplying h by cos α. Moreover, based
on the numerical simulation results, the semianalytical
NGWA.org
formula proposed in this study (see Equation 11) has
reduced the estimation error of the tunnel inflows after El
Tani (2003) from 5.1 to 1.0% (α = 0◦ ), from 7.7 to 1.1%
(α = 28.37◦ ). Meanwhile we could find that the estimation
errors in both Equation 11 and El Tani (2003) are all
around 1 to 2% when α = 14.03◦ and 21.8◦ .
Conclusions
The excavation of tunnels induces time-dependent
drawdown of groundwater and reduction of pore water
pressure in the surrounding rocks. As the seepage field
tends to a steady state, it was found by numerical
simulations that the height of the lowered water level is
closely related to the tunnel radius and the initial ground
water level. A semianalytical formula is proposed for
estimating the lowered water level, with good agreement
between the analytical solutions and the numerical results.
Analytical solutions for tunnel inflow assessment
generally adopt the constant initial groundwater level
during excavation that obtain an overestimated value
while adjusted solutions take the lowered hydraulic head
from the tunnel top arch which underestimate the inflow
rate. This inaccuracy is effectively rectified by using
the semianalytical method proposed in this paper for
both deep and low buried tunnel of r/h = 0.0167 to
0.250, which considers the initial groundwater level as
well as the lowered groundwater level. The estimation
errors of Goodman et al. (1965) as well as the proposed
semianalytical method proposed in this paper are less
than 5% when r/h < 0.0167, which indicates that the
two estimations of the tunnel water inflow can be
employed when r/h < 0.0167. With the increase of r/h,
the estimation errors of Goodman et al. (1965) raises
rapidly to 67.5% when r/h = 0.1 while the error from
the proposed method decreased to 2.0%. Meanwhile, the
estimation errors of Moon and Fernandez (2010) sustained
increase from 22.8 to 59.7% with r/h = 0.0167 to 0.1.
groundwater level, the effect of the dip angle of the
inclined water level, α, on the tunnel inflow is not
as much as mentioned before by multiplying cos α of
(El Tani 2003), which is suggested to be negligible
beyond our research. The values obtained through the
semianalytical method proposed here correspond very
well to the numerical solutions with the estimation errors
less than 2%.
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to the National Natural
Science Foundation Council of China for its financial
support (No. 51579194). The authors would like to thank
the journal editors and the anonymous reviewers for
their insightful comments, which greatly improved this
manuscript. The authors would also like to thank Prof.
Chen Y. F. of Wuhan University for his help during the
manuscript’s revision.
K. Su et al. Groundwater 9
Authors’ Note: The authors do not have any conflicts of
interest or financial disclosures to report.
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