E3S Web of Conferences 318, 01013 (2021)

https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/202131801013
ICGE 2021

Dewatering System Control by MATLAB Software

Omar Y. Mohammed1, a * and Ammar A. Shiekha1,b
1
Department of Civil Engineering, University of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq.
a
[email protected] , [email protected]

Abstract. The aim was to design a MATLAB program to calculate the phreatic surface of the multi-
well system and present the graphical shape of the water table drawdown induced by water extraction.
Dupuit’s assumption is the base for representing the dewatering curve. The program will offer the
volume of water to be extracted, the total number of wells, and the spacing between them as well as
the expected settlement of soil surrounding the dewatering foundation pit. The dewatering well
arrangement is required in execution works, and it needs more attention due to the settlement
produced from increasing effective stress.

Keywords: Dewatering; settlement; MATLAB; groundwater control.

Introduction
In many places, land subsidence has occurred, especially in heavily populated areas worldwide
[1]. Due to high population intensity, many buildings are adjacent to each other in the same block
area. These factors increased the propensity to create high-rise buildings. Many of these modern high-
rise developments are constructed next to existing old buildings. The neighboring old building is
typically critical either because the building construction framework's weakness or the foundation's
level is shallow. High-rise buildings with basements require deeper excavation than the neighboring
building's foundation floor with the presence of shallow neighboring foundations [2]. Within urban
environments, the geotechnical role becomes crucial to assess the implications of changing the
groundwater levels and propose and implement additional safety elements or measures. In many
cases, groundwater control is essential to prevent or minimize the expected detrimental effects on
existing adjacent buildings and other structures. [3]. The buildings inside the surroundings of the
extraction well area produce damage in some sections. In extreme situations, this causes can be lead
the underground pipes to fracture [4].
Construction excavations and permanent structures below the water table that are not waterproof
or are waterproof but not built to withstand hydrostatic pressure are common reasons to lower
groundwater levels. When planning building beneath the water table, choices for dealing with this
problem include building “in the wet” i.e., there is still water or some other kind of fluid in the
excavation. During building, cutoff walls are used to restrict inflow into the excavation, or
groundwater levels are lowered to minimize hydraulic head and thus inflow into the excavation.
Dewatering within the confinement of the cutoffs may still be needed to improve the stability of
working areas even when cutoff walls are used, albeit to a lesser degree. Methods of dewatering
involve passively accumulating excess water inflow into an excavation and actively lowering water
levels to keep inflow into an excavation within acceptable limits [5].
In general, MATLAB program is one of the essential programs for engineers and deals mainly
with matrices and can solve engineering problems and will be used in this paper to represent water
withdrawal and land subsidence. The essential objective is to develop an interactive computer-to-user
communication software with as little assistance as possible, enabling learning objectives to be met
in less time than required. In this meaning, the programming of these programs in MATLAB software
allows the user to choose from a vast number of parameters related to model programming and design
to determine their potential impact on numerical results. The study aims to present a computer
program that can be used in a simple manner by the engineers in order to estimate the amount of water
to be extracted from the ground to reach the required level of groundwater which is not less than 0.5
m under foundation, such a program is very useful to calculate and to repeated calculation, till

© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
E3S Web of Conferences 318, 01013 (2021) https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/202131801013
ICGE 2021

reaching the requirement of the dewatering and to predicted the radius of influence which affects the
dewatered area, since the dewatering causes a change in the value of effective stress.

Dewatering Process
Dewatering is the method of extracting water from the soil or completely extracting the water
from a specific construction site. Several excavations are carried beneath groundwater level;
techniques for dealing with these problems depend on the groundwater control requirements, the
excavation dimensions, and the soil type, among other factors. Dewatering operations of the simplest
kind are carried out with little planning. Operations in difficult environments necessitate the use of
specialized engineering and construction techniques [6]. It is normal practice to lower the
groundwater level before construction in order to promote the excavation works in the project. This
is achieved by extracting water from aquifers by dewatering wells. However, this activity can cause
ground settlement in the vicinity of an excavation, causing tilt or even cracking of nearby structures
[7]. For a long time, building dewatering has been a specialized industry. As a result, a number of
well-established techniques for lowering the groundwater table during excavation have been created.
Dewatering technology is influenced by geology, groundwater levels, and the type of excavation.
Sumps, wells, and well points are the most popular dewatering methods. Sumps perform best in
fine-grained soils or coarse boulder deposits; pumping from perforated drums or casings in a gravel-
filled backhoe pit provides localized, very shallow dewatering (less than 3 feet) [6]. Wells are large-
diameter (greater than 6 inches) holes with slotted casings and downhole pumps that are drilled
relatively deep (greater than 10 feet). Wells perform best in sand-based or sand-and-gravel-based
soils, and they can dewater vast areas to great depths. Well points are shallow wells with a small
diameter (less than 6 inches) and are closely spaced (2 to 10 feet apart). Well points dewater coarse
sands and gravels, as well as silts and clays, efficiently. They can be used in a variety of ways. On
the other hand, well points use a vacuum system and have a maximum depth of around 25 feet.
Wellpoint systems are more expensive than sumps or wells, and they require near-constant
maintenance. When a well is pumped, the surrounding groundwater surface is lowered, which is
dependent on the well size, soil permeability, pumping rate, and distance from the well. Pumping
tests from the well can be used to assess the average hydraulic conductivity of a soil credit in the path
of flow in the region.
A suitable mechanical device should be selected for those conditions once the total flow, Q, the
necessary vacuum, the distance to the point of discharge, and the discharge elevation have been
calculated. Depending on equipment availability and job conditions, a single pump or multiple pumps
can be used. If more than one pump is used, they should be spaced evenly along the header or clustered
into a single pump station. Only one discharge line is used in a single pump station, but long header
pipes are used to transport the water to the central pump station without causing undue friction, as
shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Construction well points system dewatering.

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Numerical Analysis of Dewatering Process

Li and Yang [8] used FLAC software to model a building, taking into account the foundation's
and surrounding soil's mutual effects. In the numerical analysis, both dewatering and excavation are
taken into account. The findings revealed that the dewatering process in the excavation foundation
has a direct impact on excavation foundation behavior, with water seepage increasing wall deflection
and deforming the basal base while reducing the water level outside the excavation product vertical
consolidation. Budihardjo et al. [9] describe the effect of settlement as a result of the dewatering.
Various layers of clay of various thicknesses and wells in various places are examined as part of the
analysis Plaxis 2D is used to analyze the data. The findings show that changes in groundwater can
cause the surface of each simulated aquifer sand to deform.
Samaaneh and Gadhib [10] describe the effect of dewatering on the building was analyzed using
the finite element method. The analysis was carried out in the eastern region of Saudi Arabia, where
the water level is high in this region, lead a negative impact on the building's capacity. Wells are used
to keeping the foundations of various buildings and structures dry by lowering the water level. The
research-based on a numerical analysis using SAP 2000 for the analysis of buildings and structures
subjected to water shortage issues, concluding that building settlements caused a redistribution of
stresses in beams and columns, which influenced building design. It means that the influence of the
dewatering process plays a significant role in the appearance of deformation in building components.
García-Ros et al. [11] explain the program emulates consolidation with Vertical Drains, which is a
tool for solving in heterogeneous soils with totally or partially penetrating prefabricated vertical
drains. The code Next-Generation Simulation Software with Integrated Circuit Focus was used as a
computational method, while the Matrix Laboratory (MATLAB) code was used to program and
construct an interface with the user via interactive screens in order to provide a fully free program.
Akgun et al. [12] used the program ‘‘MamLand’’ and developed to construct a Mamdani fuzzy
inference system and employed it in MATLAB. It is possible to create a landslide susceptibility map
based on expert opinion using this newly developed software. The Mamdani FIS was used to assess
landslide conditioning data, and a file depicting the landslide susceptibility degrees for the study area
was developed. For the study area, a landslide inventory dataset with 351 landslide locations was
obtained. The data were processed using a soft computing approach, i.e., a Mamdani-type fuzzy
inference method, after the data processing stage of the study was completed. The FIS in this study
included seven conditioning parameters that describe topographical, geological, and environmental
conditions. These degrees were then imported into a GIS setting, where a landslide susceptibility map
was created and evaluated for statistical purposes.
Yousef et al. [13] described three scenarios using the MATLAB interface to predict groundwater
levels in the Karaj study area until the water year 2023–2024: optimistic, pessimistic, and continuing
current situation. The current continuing situation, negative situation, and positive situation,
respectively, 12.834, 19.089, and 4.906 m water level drops were computed. Wang et al. [14] used
MODFLOW to build the groundwater flow numerical simulation modeling. A complex assessment
framework for groundwater resources under internet conditions was completed using GIS. A water
budget was evaluated during the construction of the groundwater model, which revealed a negative
budget in the NCP. The original data, including graphs and attribution data, could be stored in the
database in this integrated framework. These data were converted into files that the MODFLOW core
software could read when the process of assessing and predicting groundwater flow began. The
measured water level and drawdown could be viewed and analyzed on the internet. The simulation
period was from 1 January 2002 to 31 December 2003. The overall recharge of the groundwater
system during this period was 49,374×106 m3, and the total discharge was 56,530×106 m3.

Dewatering Computation During Excavation

When the seepage field's boundary is impermeable, the flow line is parallel to the boundary inside
the flow net, and if the seepage field is the same water head boundary, the flow line is perpendicular
to the seepage boundary as shown in Figure 2. The enclosure structure and the impermeable stratum

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underneath it can be viewed as impermeable borders, and the groundwater's horizontal velocity is
more significant than its vertical value under the enclosure's structure. Thus, groundwater seepage at
various depths beneath the enclosure structure's center axis is roughly known as a laminar flow. The
water headline is vertical at the bottom of the enclosure construction central axis. Moreover, the
inflow area around the excavation is divided into two inflow fields according to these vertical flow
lines, one inside the excavation and the other outside the excavation. The inflow of water from the
two seepage fields can then be separately resolved [15-17].
Q1 = Q 2 (1)
Where
Q1: The groundwater inside the excavation
Q2: The groundwater outside the excavation
The radius of influence is known as the maximum distance between two points which the normal
measurement devices in the field can detect the drawdown. The most popular method of determining
the radius of influence is to use empirical formulas such as Sichardt’s formula as well as Kusakin’s
formula. Furthermore, In the formulae, some scholars often take into account related impact factors
such as time t and radius of the excavation (re) [18-20].
R = 2Sw √Hk (2)
Where, R: radius of influence, m; Sw: depth of groundwater the well, m; H: the aquifer's depth, m; k:
permeability coefficient cm/s

The inflow of water Q2 is determined for a circular or rectangular excavation with a length-to-
width ratio of less than 20, use the following equation [21].
1.366K(H2 −h2m )
Q2 = (3)
R h −J h
lg(1+( ))+(( m ) lg(1+0.2( m ) ))
ro J ro

H+h′
hm = (4)
2

Where, ro = 0.565√Ao , ro: equivalent radius of the excavation, m; Ao: excavation area (m2), h′: water
head (m); J: length of the water inside well. The distribution of seepage fields in Figure2 is simplified
to one-dimensional distribution according to Darcy's seepage experimental conditions, as shown in
Figure 3.
KA(h′ −h)
Q1 = L
(5)
V
A = L′ (6)
V = πro2 (l2 + l3 ) (7)
(2l2 +l3 +ro )
L= 2
(8)
H = l1 + l2 + l3 (9)
h = l2 + +l3 (10)
Sw = H − h (11)
Where: h: after dewatering water head in excavation (m); 𝑙𝑙1 : lowering the water table in excavation (m); 𝑙𝑙2 :
after dewatering, the spread between the water table and the ground (m); 𝑙𝑙3 :distance from bottom enclosure
structure to impermeable stratum (m); A: cross-sectional area (m2); V: total seepage (m3); L: seepage path.

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Figure 2. Distribution of seepage fields in Figure 3. Simplification of the seepage path in

excavation excavation

Eqs. 1 to 11 have a simultaneous solution, which leads to the following equation:

4πr2o (l2 +l3)(h′ −h) 0.3415[4H2 −(H+h′ )2 ]

= (12)
(2l2 +l3 +ro )2 2(H−h′ )√HK H+h′ −2l H+h′
lg[1+( )]+( ) lg(1+( ))
ro 2l 10ro

To determine the number of dewatering wells:

Q1
n= (13)
qo
L
D=n (14)
Where D: the distance between well points (m); L: surroundings of an excavation (m); n: number of
well points.

The Simulation Program

The simulation of the 3D environment is the aim of this program dewatering problem in soils formed
by one stratum and considering the impact of the dewatering on an adjacent building. It is an easy-to-
use program that is capable of performing complex numerical computation. This requirement
necessitates developing a functional and easy graphical interface in which data entry and option
selection are made in a logical, intuitive, and directed manner. About the simulation potentials, the
user should make use of the program to design a dewatering system, since the software helps us to
easily learn about a wide range of outcomes, enabling engineers to make the best decisions possible.

Simulation Input Data. Data entry is carried out through the following window that appears as
completed in Figure 4. The start-up screen allows the entry of the problem geometry, the definition
of the circumference excavation in meter, the permeability of soil in cube meter per second, the
thickness of aquifer in meter, required drawdown under the foundation in meter, and discharge for
every well in cube meter per day. The user can prevent entering data by operating with a previously
saved file to improve the program's stability and effectiveness. The software allows you to save and
load data for this purpose. The simulation will begin once all of the data has been input or loaded. To

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accomplish this work, the program generates a network model file from a particular source code
executed within the program.

Simulation Output Data. The user can view the results at the end of the simulation. At the end of
the simulation, the user can access the results given in Mathematically as shown in Figure 5 and a
graphic way as shown in Figure 6. The program offers up to total discharge in a site in cube meter
per day and the number of wells that required for drawdown under foundation, the distance between
it's well, and that the geotechnical engineer can have all the necessary information in a simple,
influence radius (which represent the radius of equivalent area), conveniently arranged precise form.

Results and Discussion

The results obtained by the numerical analysis by MATLAB software reflected the site in the
example assumed is need to draw down groundwater to 2 m under the foundation, and the parameter
site is circumference excavation is 300 m, soil permeability equal 0.0003 cm/second, the thickness of
aquifer was 20 m. After used well have a diameter of 0.3 m and a pump with a capacity of 13 m3/day.
The findings revealed that during the dewatering process in the excavation foundation was the total
discharge in site 40 m3/day, and the number of wells for this must be 3, and the distance between it
was 374 m and the radius of influence 935 m .and a surface was obtained on a three-dimensional
surface representing the groundwater drop for each point of the excavation.

Figure 4. Input data of analyzed model. Figure 5. Result of analysis.

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(a)

(b)

(c)
Figure 6. 3D modeling of wells, a) 3D model, b) 3D side view of wells, and c) Top view of wells.

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Conclusions
1) Building designs based on traditional experience cannot predict the effects of soil settlement or
the probability of failure due to redistribution of stresses.
2) As an overall conclusion, it can be seen that by using the described model, risks of rising
groundwater can be eliminated during construction. It is possible to have a better discussion with
responsible persons in similar projects, and a better decision can be taken by using such a model.
3) The shape of the phreatic surface obtained from the program depends on the position of the wells
as observed.
4) The program determines the radius of influence that is possible to know the neighboring
buildings that entered within the influence of the groundwater withdrawal to take the necessary
measures to preserve these buildings.
5) The selection of the diameter of wells and the specific capacity of pumping has a significant
impact on the total discharge in the site.

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