Computers and Geotechnics 32 (2005) 264–273

www.elsevier.com/locate/compgeo

Numerical studies of seepage failure of sand within a cofferdam

N. Benmebarek a, S. Benmebarek a,*
, R. Kastner b

a
Civil Engineering Laboratory, Biskra University, BP 145 Biskra 07000, Algeria
b
URGC Géotechnique, INSA Lyon, 20 Avenue, Albert Einstein, 69621 Villeurbanne Cedex, France

Received 28 July 2004; received in revised form 2 March 2005; accepted 3 March 2005
Available online 10 May 2005

Abstract

Urban development often requires the construction of deep excavations. These might be for deep basements, cut-and-cover tun-
nels, underground parking or underground transportation systems. The design of deep excavations is often dominated by the water
flow around sheet piles or propped walls. The seepage flow influences the stability of the walls where bulk heave, piping or failure by
reduction of the earth pressure may occur. Several methods of calculating the stability against seepage failure of the soil have been
proposed in the literature, leading sometimes to great differences on the hydraulic head loss inducing failure. In this paper, the
FLAC-2D Code using an explicit finite difference method is used to analyse seepage failure of the sandy soil within a cofferdam sub-
jected to an upward seepage flow. Based on this study, the conditions for seepage failure occuring by boiling or heaving of the soil
behind sheet piles are clearly identified.

2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Numerical modeling; Seepage; Excavation; Cofferdams; Failure; Heaving; Boiling

1. Introduction but failure sometimes occurs even in deep excavation de-

The development of urban sites often requires the
construction of deep excavations under retaining walls
for deep basements, underground parking or tunnels.
The design of deep excavations is often dominated by
the water flow around the walls. The seepage flow, in-
duced by lowering of the groundwater table influences
the global stability of the wall and the stability of the
excavation bottom where bulk heaving or boiling may
occur. While the boiling takes place at the excavation
level, the heaving is more spectacular and catastrophic.
There are many published methods for the assess-
ment of bottom stability against seepage failure of soil,
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +213 33 73 89 87; fax: +213 33 73 89
86.
E-mail addresses: benmebarekn@yahoo.fr (N. Benmebarek), ben-
mebareks@yahoo.fr (S. Benmebarek), richard.kastner@insa-lyon.fr
(R. Kastner).
signed by these methods [1]. Therefore more precise
analysis is required to clarify the failure mechanisms.
To investigate the influence of seepage flow on stabil-
ity of the excavation bottom, numerical analysis has been
carried out using the code FLAC-2D [2] for better under-
standing the seepage failure phenomena. From a series of
numerical experiments, it is found that the failure mech-
anism shapes and the head loss at failure are significantly
influenced by soil and interface characteristics.
2. Overview of previous work
Several methods have been proposed for assessing the
risk of failure due to seepage forces. The influence of
seepage flow on the stability of retaining excavations
was first addressed by Terzaghi [3]. From model tests,
he found that within an excavation, the zone of danger
of bottom heave is confined to a soil prism adjacent to

0266-352X/$ - see front matter
2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compgeo.2005.03.001
 N. Benmebarek et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 32 (2005) 264–273
Nomenclature
/ angle of internal friction of the soil
w dilation angle of the soil
c0 submerged unit weight of the soil
d angle of friction at the soil/wall interface
cw unit weight of water
c soil cohesion
D penetration depth of the sheet pile
H total hydraulic head loss
the wall. He assumed, from experimental evidence, that
the body of sand, which is lifted by water, has the shape
of a rectangular prism (Fig. 1) with a width equal to the
half of the wall penetration D/2 and the horizontal base
at some depth D0 below the surface (0 6 D0 6 D). It is
assumed that at the instant of failure, the effective hori-
zontal stresses on the prism vertical sides and the corre-
sponding frictional resistance are zero.
Therefore, the prism rises up and collapses as soon as
the total excess water pressure Ue on the bottom of the
prism OA becomes equal to the submerged weight of the
prism W 0 .
The safety factor against bulk heave is determined by
the ratio of the submerged weight of the prism to the ex-
cess water force on the prism base:
F s ¼ W 0 =U e ¼ ic =im ;
where im is the average hydraulic gradient between IJ
and EF.
McNamee [4] identified two main types of failure:

Local failure as ‘‘piping’’ or ‘‘boiling’’ is most likely
to begin at a point on the surface adjacent to the sheet
pile as it lies within the shortest seepage path.
H if the shear forces at vertical faces are neglected and its
D/2
E F
Wsat
D D0
I J
U
Fig. 1. Failure by heaving [3].
265
ic critical gradient
ie exit gradient
im average hydraulic gradient along the prism
K bulk modulus of the soil
G shear modulus of the soil
Kn interface normal stiffness
Ks interface shear stiffness

General upheaval ‘‘heaving’’, which involves a
greater volume of soil.
Piping or boiling occurs when a small prism of soil at
the excavation level is not sufficiently heavy to resist up-
lift forces due to the upward flow. Terzaghi (1943) de-
fined the concept of critical hydraulic gradient (or
flotation gradient) ic which controls the phenomenon
of Piping or boiling.
McNamee defined the safety factor against boiling as
the ratio of the critical gradient to the exit gradient ie at
the excavation level, hence
F ¼ ic =ie . ð2Þ
The author presented charts enabling the determina-
tion of the corresponding safety factor for a range of
ð1Þ
dimensions of the excavation.
Marsland [5] undertook extensive model tests using
both dense and loose homogeneous sands in an open
water excavation. He concluded that in loose sand, fail-
ure occurs when the pressure at the sheet pile tip is suf-
ficient to lift the column of submerged sand near the
wall of the cofferdam (the width of half the embedment
is not mentioned). In dense sand, failure occurs when the
exit gradient at the excavation surface reaches a critical
value.
By examining the equilibrium conditions with re-
spect to excess pore pressures, Davidenkoff [6] showed
that bulk heave of a rectangular prism is possible only
width is smaller than noted by Terzaghi [3]. He con-
cluded that the prism rises up as soon as the mean
gradient calculated over the embedment length of the
wall becomes equal to the critical gradient and the fail-
ure prism begins from the wall toe for homogeneous
soils.
Bazant [7] established a failure criterion with regard
to the soil shear strength by plotting the excess pore
pressure at the sheet pile tip divided by the embedment
depth of the sheet pile against the soil internal friction
angle.
Davidenkoff and Franke [8] proposed a diagram
based on model studies, which can be used to determine
266 N. Benmebarek et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 32 (2005) 264–273
the safety factor against piping for excavations in open
water with different thickness of the pervious stratum.
The comparison between the safety factors derived
from these various approaches in the case of a sheet pile
wall driven in a semi infinite homogeneous and isotro-
pic soil reveals significant variations reaching up to
75% [9].
Soubra et al. [10] published results of the passive
earth pressure coefficients in the presence of hydraulic
gradients using the variational approach applied to
the limit equilibrium method. Their results (Fig. 2)
showed a quasi-linear decrease in the passive earth pres-
sure coefficients Kp for the hydraulic head loss (H/D)
values varying from 0 to 2.5, for the case of a single
sheet pile wall driven into a homogeneous and isotropic
semi infinite soil medium. The passive earth pressures
are sensitive to the soil–structure interface friction d
but vanish completely at the same value of H/D = 2.78
for different interface friction angles. They concluded
that the angle of friction at the soil–structure has no ef-
fect on the H/D value causing failure by heaving. For
the same case, TerzaghiÕs approach gives a value of
H/D against seepage failure by heaving equal to 2.82,
while the boiling phenomenon which appears for a crit-
ical hydraulic gradient at point E (Fig. 1), occurs with a
theoretical value of the hydraulic head loss equal to
H/D = 3.14 = p.
From these overviews, it appears that seepage failure
at the excavation bottom can arise from different failure
mechanisms.
Our aim in this paper is to propose a numerical pro-
cedure in order to evaluate the head loss for seepage fail-
ure at bottom excavation and to identify the different
failure mechanisms using the explicit finite difference
method implemented in FLAC-2D code.
Fig. 2. Kp versus H/D for / = 30 and d// = 0,1/3,1/2 and 2/3 in the
case of a homogeneous isotropic semi-infinite medium [10].
3. Numerical modeling procedure
3.1. Case study
This paper deals with the numerical study of bottom
stability against seepage failure of sand within a coffer-
dam. A sheet pile with penetration depth equal to D in
homogeneous isotropic semi-infinite soil, which is sub-
jected to hydraulic head H, is considered as shown in
Fig. 3.
This problem has many parameters: excavation or
cofferdam width, penetration of retaining wall in the
soil, thickness of permeable soil, wall flexibility, strut
rigidity, wall translation and rotation . . . etc.
The objective of this work is not to consider the influ-
ence of all these parameters but to check if a numerical
analysis using the finite difference or the finite element
approach can describe correctly the various failure
mechanisms observed due to upward seepage flow into
a cofferdam. Therefore, the problem has been simplified
by referring to some model tests observations of failures
and to the classical approaches where the action of the
wall on the soil is not directly considered, but the wall
is being considered as fixed.
An infinite rigid wall fixed by struts is considered in
this study. This is a simplification of the real problem
where the wall flexibility leads to a limited partial sup-
port of the soil on the wall embedment. This allows to
show the presence of the supposed fixed wall effect on
the failure mechanisms as well as the comparison of
the results with the classical approaches where the wall
is taken into account from the hydraulic point of view
only.
The analysis is carried out using the computer code
FLAC-2D (Fast Lagrangian Analysis of Continua)
which is a commercially available finite difference expli-
cit program.
Fig. 3. Case study.
 N. Benmebarek et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 32 (2005) 264–273
The soil behavior is modeled by the elastic-perfectly
plastic nonassociative Mohr–Coulomb model encoded
in FLAC-2D code. All subsequent results are given for
csat/cw = 2, elastic bulk modulus K = 30 MPa and shear
modulus G = 11.25 MPa. Four values of the angle of
internal friction u = 20, 30, 35, 40, four values of
the friction angle at the soil/wall interface d/u = 0, 1/
3, 2/3, 1, and three values of the dilation angle w/
u = 0, 1/2, 1 are considered in the analysis.
4. Modeling procedure
In the case of a rough wall, modeling the interface be-
tween the soil and the wall is invariably an integral part
of the analysis.
The material properties, particularly stiffness assigned
to an interface, depend on the way in which the interface
is used. In the case of soil–structure interaction, the
interface is considered stiff compared to the surrounding
soil, but it can slip and may be open in response to the
loading. Joints with zero thickness are more suitable for
simulating the frictional behaviour at the interface be-
tween the wall and the soil.
The interface model shown in Fig. 4 has been used to
simulate the soil/wall contact described by Coulomb
law. The logic contact for either side of the interface is
similar in nature to the interface used in the distinct ele-
ment method [11].
The spring in the tangential direction and the slider
(Fig. 4) represent the Coulomb shear-strength criterion.
The spring in the normal direction and the limit strength
represent the normal contact. The interface has a friction
angle d, a cohesion c = 0 kPa, a normal stiffness
Kn = 109 Pa/m, and a shear stiffness Ks = 109 Pa/m. These
values of Kn and Ks are selected to approximate the results
for the case where the wall is rigidly attached to the grid.
Fig. 4. Interface element used [2].
267
The prediction of collapse conditions under steady
plastic flow conditions is one that can be difficult for a
numerical model to simulate accurately [12]. Frydman
and Burd [13], and Erickson and Dresher [14] operating
with viscoplastic or elastoplastic algorithms, have shown
clearly the dependence of the plane strain bearing capac-
ity factor Nc on the geometry of the mesh and indicate
the reduction of this factor with decreasing value of soil
dilation angle.
Accordingly, in order to develop an acceptable anal-
ysis scheme for later computations, preliminary simula-
tions have been carried out by testing the influence of
the mesh dimensions, the element size, the boundary
conditions and the earth pressure coefficient at rest K0
as well.
The results show the difficulty in the capturing of the
failure mechanisms for coarse meshes and prove the
requirement of refined mesh to capture it clearly. As
an illustration, Fig. 5 shows the failure mechanism pre-
sented by the displacement field and the corresponding
distribution of maximum shear strain rates at steady
state plastic flow for coarse mesh 40 · 20 (horizontal
by vertical) and fine mesh 80 · 40 elements.
Also, the results confirm that variation in practical
range of the elastic soil parameters and earth pressure
coefficient at rest K0 do not have any significant influ-
ence on the critical hydraulic pressure loss, as the
numerical estimation of the bearing foundation capacity
factor Nc [13,14].
Fig. 6 shows the mesh (80 · 40 elements) and bound-
ary conditions retained for this analysis. The mesh size is
fine near the wall where deformations and flow gradients
are concentrated. In order to minimize boundary effects,
the length from the wall and the depth of the mesh are
respectively located at six and five times the wall pene-
tration. As a general rule for the boundary conditions,
the bottom boundary is assumed to be fixed, the right
268 N. Benmebarek et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 32 (2005) 264–273

(a)

Max. shear strain-rate

0.00E+00
2.00E-06
4.00E-06
6.00E-06
8.00E-06
1.00E-05

Contour interval= 2.00E-06

Displacement vectors
Max Vector = 6.686E-01 40x20 elements

0 2E 0
Boundary plot

0 2E 0

(b)

Boundary plot

0 2E 0
Max. shear strain-rate
0.00E+00
4.00E-06
8.00E-06
1.20E-05
1.60E-05
2.00E-05
2.40E-05
2.80E-05 80x40 elements
Contour interval= 2.00E-06
Displacement vectors
Max Vector = 3.164E-01

0 1E 0

Fig. 5. Capture failure mechanisms when / = 35, d// = 2/3, w// = 1/2, H/D = 3.00 for: (a) coarse mesh 40 · 20; (b) fine mesh 80 · 40.

and left lateral boundaries are fixed in the horizontal
directions.
The sheet piles wall is modeled by structural beam
elements connected to the soil grid via interface elements
attached on both sides of the beam elements. The wall
thus acts as an impermeable member.
To identify the limiting cases corresponding to zero
passive earth pressures and seepage failure by heaving
or boiling, the following three simulation procedure
steps are adopted:
1. The geostatic stresses are computed assuming the
material to be elastic. The initial pore pressure and
effective stresses are established using the fish library
function assuming that the ratio of effective horizon-
tal stress to effective vertical stress at rest is taken 0.5.
 N. Benmebarek et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 32 (2005) 264–273 269

Wall

Fig. 6. Mesh used and boundary conditions.

Z
H H=0

∂H
=0 ∂H
∂x =0
∂x
Impermeable

∂H
=0
∂z

Fig. 7. Hydraulic boundary conditions.

The groundwater level is assumed to be located at the Table 1

ground surface. This analysis is performed within the Critical hydraulic head loss H/D for various governing parameters /,
groundwater configuration as uncoupled groundwa- w// and d//
ter flow and mechanical calculation. d// w// H/D limit
2. The field describing the distribution of the pore water / = 20 / = 25 / = 30 / = 35 / = 40
pressure due to a hydraulic head loss H is calculated
0 0 2.63* 2.68* 2.74* 2.77* 2.8*
under hydraulic limit conditions shown in Fig. 7. 1/2 2.64** 2.70** 2.79** 2.82** 2.90**
3. The mechanical response is investigated for the pore 1 2.64** 2.71** 2.82** 2.84** 2.93**
pressure distribution established in the previous step.
1/3 0 2.67* 2.78* 2.84* 2.90* 2.93*
1/2 2.68** 2.82** 2.88** 2.94** 2.98**
Steps 2 and 3 are repeated with the progressive in- 1 2.68** 2.84** 2.91** 2.97** 3.03**
crease of the hydraulic head loss until failure. 2/3 0 2.72* 2.81* 2.90* 2.92* 2.97*
It is noted that the simulation procedure does not im- 1/2 2.73** 2.83** 2.92** 2.97** 3.12**
pose a horizontal displacement of the wall as for the com- 1 2.73** 2.84** 2.93** 3.04*** 3.16***
putation of the passive earth pressures. It should 1 0 2.73* 2.84* 2.90* 2.93* 2.99*
be mentioned that the evaluation of the precise value of 1/2 2.73** 2.87** 2.94** 3.03** 3.13**
H/D for which the passive pressures vanish is not easy 1 2.73** 2.90** 2.98** 3.05*** 3.16***
to obtain. Therefore, only the bottom stability against Failure by bulk heave of rectangular (*) or triangular (**) soil prisms,
soil seepage failure is investigated for different ranges of or by boiling (***).
270 N. Benmebarek et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 32 (2005) 264–273

the hydraulic head loss H/D, various governing parame-
ters soil friction, soil dilation and interface friction.
5. Results and discussion
Numerical studies are performed for different soil
friction angles and the results are presented in Table 1
for / = 20, 30, 35 and 40. Results for failure by
heaving are presented by one asterisk or two and failure
by boiling by three.
These results indicate clearly that the bottom stability
against seepage failure always corresponds to a bulk
heave except in the case of a dense sand / P 40, a dilat-
ing material w// C 1/2 and a rough wall d// P 2/3
where boiling would occur. It can be seen that boiling
starts from a hydraulic pressure loss of H/D = 3.16. This
value is very close to the theoretical critical head loss va-
lue H/D = 3.14. In this case, the exit hydraulic gradient
attains the critical hydraulic gradient value. Fig. 8 shows
the failure mechanism indicated by the displacement
field and the corresponding distribution of maximum

Boundary plot

0 2E 0
Displacement vectors
Max Vector = 6.112E-01

0 2E 0

Max. shear strain-rate

0.00E+00
1.00E-06
2.00E-06
3.00E-06
4.00E-06
5.00E-06
6.00E-06
7.00E-06
8.00E-06
9.00E-06

Contour interval= 1.00E-06

Boundary plot

0 2E 0

Fig. 8. Displacement field and the corresponding distribution of maximum shear strain rates when / = 40, d// = 2/3, w// = 1, H/D = 3.2.
 N. Benmebarek et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 32 (2005) 264–273 271

shear strain rates obtained in the case of / = 40, d//
= 2/3, w// = 1 and H/D = 3.2 where boiling phenomena
is indicated.
For w// = 0, a rectangular soil prism similar to that
proposed by Terzaghi [4] is observed. Fig. 9 shows the
failure mechanism in the case of / = 35, w// = 0, d//
= 2/3 and H/D = 3 where bulk heave of a rectangular
soil prism with a width smaller than that of TerzaghiÕs
method is observed. However, for dilating material
w// P 1/2, a triangular soil prism is obtained and as
an example, Fig. 10 shows the case of / = 35, w// =
1/2, d// = 2/3, H/D = 3 where bulk heave of a triangle
soil prism is observed. The present simulation procedure
demonstrate that soil dilation angle has a significant
influence on the failure mechanism shape.
From Table 1, for d// = 0, w// = 1 and / varies from
20 to 40, the critical value of H/D lies in the range of
2.64–2.93 It is noted that for various values of / Ter-
zaghiÕs solution is H/D = 2.82 whereas that of Soubra
et al. [11] solution is H/D = 2.78. Also, for / = 40,
w// = 1 and d// varies from 0 to 1, the critical value
of H/D lies in the range of 2.93–3.16.
These results show that the critical hydraulic pressure
loss H/D corresponding to the zero effective passive
pressures depends on the soil friction angle and the
interface soil/wall friction.

Boundary plot

0 2E 0
Displacement vectors
Max Vector = 1.562E+00

0 5E 0

Boundary plot

0 2E 0
Max. shear strain-rate
0.00E+00
5.00E-05
1.00E-04
1.50E-04
2.00E-04
2.50E-04
3.00E-04

Contour interval= 5.00E-05

Fig. 9. Displacement field and the corresponding distribution of maximum shear strain rates when / = 35, d// = 2/3, w// = 0, H/D = 3.
272 N. Benmebarek et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 32 (2005) 264–273

Boundary plot

0 2E 0
Displacement vectors
Max Vector = 3.789E-01

0 1E 0

Boundary plot

0 2E 0
Max. shear strain-rate
0.00E+00
3.00E-06
6.00E-06
9.00E-06
1.20E-05
1.50E-05
1.80E-05
2.10E-05
2.40E-05

Contour interval= 1.00E-06

Fig. 10. Displacement field and the corresponding distribution of maximum shear strain rates when / = 35, d// = 2/3, w// = 1/2, H/D = 3.

This behaviour can be explained as follows: when the
soil adjacent to the wall expands by dilation at failure,
the shear forces induced on the vertical faces of the
prism block the rising of the rectangular prism. There-
fore, a triangular failure prism appears instead. This
corresponds to a kinematically admissible mechanism
within the frame of limit analysis theory. This phenom-
enon has been experimentally observed by Kastner [9].
For high values of / and w, shear forces on the wall
embedment and horizontal soil expansion by dilation
delay the triangular prism failure. Therefore, the surface
exit gradient becomes critical before the bulk heave of
the triangular prism and initiates the boiling. This case
may also occur for a flexible wall supported partially
by the soil.
6. Conclusions
Several methods have been proposed to assess the
risk of seepage failure at the excavation bottom of a
braced cofferdam by heaving or boiling. Sometimes,
 N. Benmebarek et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 32 (2005) 264–273
these methods lead to great differences on the hydrau-
lic head loss inducing failure. more precise analyses
have been completed to clarify the real cause of the
failure.
In spite of the simplicity of the proposed numerical
simulation procedure, the different failure mechanisms
described in the literature have been obtained, depend-
ing on the soil and soil/wall interface conditions. The re-
sults of these simulations have shown the following:

The critical hydraulic loss H/D against failure by
seepage flow depends on the soil friction angle and
the interface soil/wall friction.

The boiling appears only for dense and dilatant sand
in which / P 35, w// C 2/3 and a rough wall d//
P 2/3. In this case the exit gradient becomes equal
to the critical hydraulic gradient, whereas heaving
occurs for the other cases.

The results of the present simulation procedure show
that soil dilation angle has a significant influence on
the failure mechanism shape. For a dilating material,
a triangular prism failure by heaving is obtained,
whereas a rectangular prism for other cases.

The rectangular prism obtained has a width smaller
than that obtained in TerzaghiÕs method.
Finally, the obtained results validate the simulation
procedure using Flac-2D code to estimate the risk of fail-
ure due to seepage flow. Such approaches can thus be
used to estimate the risk of failure for more complex
works rather than the example presented in this study,
such as layered soils and deep excavations strongly pe-
netrating underneath the ground water table.
273
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