Determination of Free Surface in Steady-State Seepage through a Dam with Toe Drain by the Boundary Element Method

Abstract

A numerical method is required for the determination of free surface in seepage through a dam having an arbitrary geometry. The boundary element method has advantages over domain-type methods such as the finite difference method and the finite element method, and is used to solve seepage problems in this paper. Previously, an efficient algorithm has been proposed for solving a seepage problem in a dam with tail water. This paper proposes an algorithm to solve a seepage problem in a dam with toe drain. In such a problem, the dam is transformed into a dam with seepage surface. The width of the dam is then determined iteratively until the height of the seepage surface attains the preset minimum value. Numerical tests on two test problems by the proposed algorithm reveal the agreement between numerical and analytical solutions.

Keywords: porous medium, moving boundary, seepage surface