Study on Foundation Behavior due to Seepage Force of Groundwater

Abstract

Along with the vigorous developing construction in the world, the number of various underground engineerings is greatly increasing, such as the foundations of subways, tunnels, dams and high-rise buildings etc., where the attention is always paid to the seepage behavior in the soil around the structures. Seepage flow can lead to both horizontal and vertical displacement, but ground behaviors due to seepage force in traditional methods were rarely considered. In this paper, a 3D analysis is made on the foundation behavior due to seepage force of groundwater. The model uses the finite element method to study the problem and the model implemented by FORTRAN code is applied to predict the flow velocity distribution and deformation results of the simulated domain. The analysis shows that horizontal deformation caused by seepage flow plays a very important role in deformation field, which may lead to toppling behavior to the foundation of high-rise buildings.