Drawdown Analysis for Slope 26-1

Drawdown Analysis for Slope

In this tutorial, two different methods of modeling the staged drawdown
of ponded water against a slope are examined, and an SSR slope stability
analysis is performed. The drawdown is implemented in two ways: 1) by
lowering the water table, and 2) by running a finite element groundwater
analysis with changing boundary conditions.

The complete models can be found in the Tutorial 26 Slope Drawdown

(piezo).fez and Tutorial 26 Slope Drawdown (finite).fez files which
can be accessed by selecting File > Recent Folders > Tutorials Folder from
the Phase2 main menu.

Topics covered

• Drawdown

• Staged piezo lines

• Staged groundwater analysis

• Shear strength reduction

• Importing coordinates

• Ponded water loading

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 Drawdown Analysis for Slope 26-2

Model

Start the Phase2 Model program. In this tutorial we will start with a
model that has already been constructed. Select File → Open and choose
Tutorial 26 Slope Drawdown (initial).fez from the Examples >
Tutorials folder in your Phase2 installation folder. You will see a model
that looks like this:

This is a two-stage model of a slope upon which a Shear Strength

Reduction analysis will be performed. The geometry, material properties
and mesh have already been specified for this model. The purpose of this
tutorial is to examine how to simulate groundwater drawdown. This can
be done in two different ways: using piezo lines or finite element
groundwater analysis. We will start with the piezo line approach.

Drawdown with piezometric lines

Go to Analysis → Project Settings and select the Groundwater tab.

Ensure that the Method is set to Piezometric Lines and that the Pore
Fluid Unit Weight is 9.81 kN/m3 as shown:

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 Drawdown Analysis for Slope 26-3

Click on the Strength Reduction tab and you will see that Shear Strength
Reduction has been turned on.

Click OK to close the dialog.

Piezometric Lines
In the first stage, there will be 10 m of ponded water at the base of the
slope. In the second stage, the ponded water will drop down 5 m.

Ensure you are looking at Stage 1. Go to Boundaries → Add

Piezometric Line. Enter the following coordinates:

0 , 40

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 Drawdown Analysis for Slope 26-4

65 , 40

66.35 , 40.6

67.7 , 41

78.3 , 42.4

89.4 , 43.5

130 , 47

Enter

Now select Soil 1 in the dialog as shown:

Click OK. Your model should now look like this:

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 Drawdown Analysis for Slope 26-5

In the second state we want to drop the ponded water by 5 m. Click on

the tab for Stage 2. Go to Boundaries → Add Piezometric Line. Enter
the following coordinates (or import Tutorial 26 piezo 2.txt as described in
the tip above):

0 35

57.5 35

58.7 35.8

60.1 36.3

65.3 37.3

76.6 39

93.5 41.1

110 43

130 45

Enter

Select Soil 1 in the ‘Assign Piezometric Line to Materials’ dialog and click
OK. The model should now look like this:

Notice that the new water table (piezo 2) has superceded the old water
table (piezo 1). Go back to Stage 1. You will see that Stage 1 is the same
as Stage 2; the active water table is piezo 2, and piezo 1 is inactive. We
now need to stage the piezo lines.

From the Properties menu, choose Define Hydraulic. Click on the

Stage Piezo Lines checkbox. For Stage 1, choose Piezo #1 and for Stage 2,
choose Piezo #2.

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 Drawdown Analysis for Slope 26-6

Click OK to close the dialog. Now click through the stages and you will
see that piezo 1 is active in Stage 1 and piezo 2 is active in Stage 2.

Ponded Water Load

In this model there is ponded water at the left side of the model. This
applies a stress to the soil surface due to the weight of the water. To
account for this, go to Loading → Distributed Loads → Add Ponded
Water Load. In Stage 1, the y-coordinate of the water table is 40 m. So
enter a Total Head of 40 m. Now select the Stage Load checkbox.

Click the Stage Total Head button. In Stage 2, the water table is at 35 m,
so change the Total Head for Stage 2 to 35 m as shown:

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 Drawdown Analysis for Slope 26-7

Click OK and then click OK to close the ‘Add Ponded Water Load’ dialog.
You will now be prompted to select the boundary segments on which to
apply the ponded water load. Select the horizontal surface between (0,30)
and (50,30). Also select the two segments on the slope below piezo 1. Hit
Enter to finish choosing segments. The model for Stage 1 should look like
this:

You can see the load due to the weight of the water in Stage 1 ranges
from 0 to 98.1 kPa. In Stage 2, the depth of ponded water is reduced by
half so the maximum load is 49.05 kPa.

The model definition is now complete. Save the model using the Save As
option in the File menu.

Compute
Run the model using the Compute option in the Analysis menu.
Because it is performing a Shear Strength Reduction analysis, the model
will take several minutes to run.

Once the model has finished computing (Compute dialog closes), select
the Interpret option in the Analysis menu to view the results.

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 Drawdown Analysis for Slope 26-8

Interpret
The Interpret program starts and reads the results of the analysis. The
Shear Strength Reduction analysis is only performed on the last stage of
your model, so what you are seeing is the maximum shear strain for the
critical strength reduction factor (1.28) for the second stage.

If you click the tab for SRF: 1.31 you get a better picture of the critical
failure surface as shown.

If you want to look at the stage data prior to the SSR analysis, select
Stage Settings from the Data menu. Set the Reference Stage to Not
Used, and the Visible Stage to Stage 1.

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 Drawdown Analysis for Slope 26-9

Click OK. You will now see the maximum shear strain in stage 1. Change
the plot to Pore Pressure using the pull-down menu at the top. You can
see the pore pressure due to the water table in Stage 1. Click the tab for
Stage 2. It is clear how the pore pressure decreases as the water table is
lowered.

Drawdown with finite element groundwater analysis

We can perform the same analysis using finite elements to compute the
pore pressures in the model instead of Piezometric lines.

Go back to the Phase2 Model program. Go to Analysis → Project

Settings and select the Groundwater tab. Change the method to Finite
Element Analysis. Leave all other options as shown:

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 Drawdown Analysis for Slope 26-10

Click OK to close the dialog. Phase2 will ask you if you want to delete the
Piezometric lines. Click Yes.

Groundwater boundary conditions

From the Groundwater menu, select Show Boundary Conditions.
Ensure you are looking at Stage 1. Choose Set Boundary Conditions
from the Groundwater menu. For the BC Type, choose Total Head. Set
the Total Head Value to 47 m.

Use the mouse to select the right vertical boundary of the model. Click
Apply in the dialog. The right side of the model should display a total
head boundary condition as shown:

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 Drawdown Analysis for Slope 26-11

In the dialog, change the Total Head Value to 40. Click on the left vertical
boundary, the horizontal segment at the base of the slope and the bottom
two segments of the slope and click apply. The model should look like
this:

You can see how Phase2 displays the ponded water based on the specified
total head boundary conditions. Finally, we need to set unknown
boundary conditions for the rest of the slope face, since we don’t know
where the water table will intersect the slope. In the Set Boundary
Conditions dialog, select Unknown (P=0 or Q=0) for the BC Type. Click
the top segment of the slope face and click Apply. Click the Close button
and the model should look like this:

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 Drawdown Analysis for Slope 26-12

Now click the tab for Stage 2. In Stage 2 we want to lower the ponded
water. Choose Set Boundary Conditions from the Groundwater
menu again. Follow these steps:

• Select Total Head (H) for the BC Type. Set the Total Head to 45
m. Select the right vertical boundary and click Apply.

• Set the Total Head Value to 35 m. Click on the left vertical

boundary, the horizontal boundary at the base of the slope, and
the bottom section of the slope face and click Apply.

• Change the BC Type to Unknown (P=0 or Q=0). Click on the

section of the slope just above the water table (the middle section
of the slope face) and click Apply.

Select the Close button to close the dialog. The model should look like this
for Stage 2.

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 Drawdown Analysis for Slope 26-13

Hydraulic material properties

From the Properties menu, choose Define Hydraulic. Here you can
select the model that dictates the permeability transition from saturated
to unsaturated soil. Leave the model as the default (Simple). You can also
change the permeability here. Leave the default value of 1e-7 m/s.

Click OK to close the dialog.

The model definition is now complete. Save the model using the Save As
option in the File menu. Choose a different name from the model that
you created using Piezometric lines.

Compute
Run the model using the Compute option in the Analysis menu.
Because it is performing a Shear Strength Reduction analysis, the model
will take several minutes to run.

Once the model has finished computing (Compute dialog closes), select
the Interpret option in the Analysis menu to view the results.

Interpret
The Interpret program starts and reads the results of the analysis. You
are now looking at the maximum shear strain for the critical strength
reduction factor (1.25) for the second stage.

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 Drawdown Analysis for Slope 26-14

This is slightly lower than the SRF of 1.28 calculated for the model with
Piezometric lines.

If you click the tab for SRF: 1.26 you get a better picture of the critical
failure surface as shown.

This looks basically the same as the failure surface in the model with
piezo lines.

If you want to look at stage data prior to the SSR analysis, select Stage
Settings from the Data menu. Set the Reference Stage to Not Used, and
the Visible Stage to Stage 1.

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 Drawdown Analysis for Slope 26-15

Click OK. You will now see the maximum shear strain in Stage 1. Change
the plot to Pore Pressure using the pull-down menu at the top. You can
see the pore pressure in stage 1. Click the tab for Stage 2. It is clear how
the pore pressure decreases as the boundary conditions change.

If you still have the previous model open in Interpret (with the piezo
lines), you can view them both simultaneously by selecting Tile Vertically
from the Window menu.

Click on the window showing the pore pressures in the piezo line model.
Ensure you are looking at Stage 2. You can’t see the piezo line because it
is the same colour as the contours. To change the piezo line colour, select
Display Options from the View menu. Under Boundaries, change the
Piezometric line colour to pink as shown.

Click Done.

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 Drawdown Analysis for Slope 26-16

To facilitate comparison between the two models, we want the contour

range to be the same. Select Contour Options from the View menu and
select Custom Range. Set Min to -120 and Max to 480.

Click Done and the screen should look like this:

You will see the pore pressures are basically the same for the two models.
The main difference is that the finite element groundwater model
exhibits negative pore pressures (suction) above the water table.

Note that the negative pore pressures have no effect on the slope
stability, unless you specify an unsaturated shear strength parameter
phi_b for the material. See the Phase2 help for more information.

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 Drawdown Analysis for Slope 26-17

The other difference between the models is that the contours are a bit
smoother for the finite element groundwater analysis. The results from
this model are likely more accurate than the results from the model with
piezo lines. In the piezo line model, we had to guess at the water table
profile and the water table was then used to compute pore pressures. In
the finite element groundwater model, pore pressures are calculated
based on the boundary conditions, and the water table shows where the
pore pressure is 0.

This concludes the tutorial; you may now exit the Phase2 Interpret and
Phase2 Model programs.

Phase2 v.8.0 Tutorial Manual