Characteristics of dewatering induced drawdown curve under blocking effect of retaining wall in aquifer

Abstract

Summary For deep excavation pits that require the pumping of confined groundwater, a combination of a retaining wall and dewatering with large-diameter wells is usually adopted during excavation to improve safety. Since a retaining wall has a much lower hydraulic conductivity than the surrounding material in the aquifer, blocking of seepage to prolong the seepage path of the groundwater outside of the pit is effective. The retaining walls used during excavation dewatering cause hydraulic head drawdown inside the pit much faster than outside the pit. Thus, difference in hydraulic head between inside and outside of the pit increases. To investigate the mechanism of the blocking effect, numerical simulation using the finite difference method (FDM) was conducted to analyze the effects of pumping in the pit. The FDM results show that drawdown varies along the depth of the confined aquifer. The influence factors of drawdown inside and outside the pit include insertion depth of retaining walls, anisotropy of a confined aquifer and screen length of pumping wells. In addition, FDM results also show that the drawdown-time curve can be divided into four stages: in Stage I, drawdown inside the pit is very small and outside the pit it is almost zero; in Stage II, drawdown increases quickly with time; in Stage III, the drawdown curve is parallel to the Cooper–Jacob curve on semi-log axes; and in Stage IV, the drawdown becomes constant. These characteristics of the drawdown curve under the blocking effect of a retaining wall in an aquifer provide a way of estimating hydrogeological parameters according to pumping test results.