MODULE 6

DEWATERING
• Dewatering means modifying the ground by
lowering the water table , redirecting
seepage, or simply reducing its water
content
• Civil eng works such as in the stability of
natural slopes and cuts, dams and levees,
excavation for structures, pavements etc..
 PURPOSES
• To provide dry working area such as in excavation
for building foundations , dams, tunnels etc
• To stabilize constructed or natural slopes
• To reduce lateral pressures on foundations or
retaining structures
• To increase the bearing capacity of foundation
• To prevent liquefaction
• To prevent surface erosion
• To prevent or reduce damage due to frost heave
 METHODS OF DEWATERING
SYSTEMS
• Open sumps and ditches
• Well point system
• Deep well drainage
• Vaccum dewatering systems
• Dewatering by electro- osmosis
 OPEN SUMPS AND DITCHES
• Water is collected in sumps or ditches and
then removed by pumping.
• Sump is made below the ground level of
excavation at one or more corners or sides
• To prevent standing water on the floor of
excavation, a ditch is cut around excavation,
falling towards the sump.
• Water from slopes falls into sump by gravity
and then it is pumped out from the sump.
• Most cheapest and common dewatering
method.

• This method is suitable in :

• Shallow excavation
• In well-graded soil or in rock
• In permeable soils on impermeable strata
 ADVANTAGES
• It is the most economical method for installation
and maintenance
• It can be applied to most soil and rock conditions
• This method can also be used in situations where
boulders and other obstructions are met within
the ground.
• Appropriate for small depth lowering.
The greatest depth to which water table can be
lowered by this method is 8m below the pump
level
 DISADVANTAGES
• In areas with steep slopes, this method is not
demanded.
• This method will bring collapse of slopes and
causes dangerous problems.
• Use of sumps and ditches in open excavation
will bring risk in stability of the base.
 WELL POINT SYSTEMS
• Small well screens of sizes 50 to 80 mm in
diameter and 0.3 to 1m length
• Brass or stainless steel screens and are made
with closed ends or self jetting types
• Well points are required to maintain for long
period
• Working:
Water drawn through the screens enters the
space between the gauze and outside of the
riser pipe
From riser pipe to holes drilled in the bottom
of this pipe and then reaches the surface
Well points are installed by jetting them into
the ground
• Capacity of single well point with 50 mm riser
-10 l/m
• Spacing depends on permeability and
availability of time to effect the drawdown
• In fine to coarse sands 0.75 to 1 m spacing
• In silty sands with low permeability-1.5 m
• In highly permeable coarse gravels- 0.3 m
• Commonly used method
• Well point system is suitable when the site is
accessible, and where water bearing stratum
to be drained is not too deep
• ADVANTAGES
• Installation is very rapid
• Simple and cheap equipments
• Water is filtered and carries little or no
particle
• Because there is less danger of subsidence of
the surrounding ground than open sump
• DISADVANTAGE
• Serious limitation is suction lift
• A lowering of about 6m below the pump level
is possible beyond which excessive air shall be
drawn into the system through the joint in
pipes, valves, etc.
• Resulting in loss of pumping efficiency
• If the ground consisting mainly large gravels
cobbles or boulder it is not possible to install
well points
 Multistage well point system
• Installed two or more stages
• No limit to depth of drawdown in this way, but
the width of excavation at ground level
becomes very large
 Well points in braced excvation
• Placed close to toes of the sheet piles
• Done in order to ensure the lowering the
water level between the sheet pile rows
• It helps to prevent quick condition of the
bottom
• To eliminate hydrostatic pressure on the sheet
piles
VACCUM DEWATERING SYSTEM
• Suitable for fine grained soils with permeabilty
in the range of 0.1 to 10x10-3 mm/s
• Dewatering system requires well or well point
screens, riser pipe surrounded with filter
sands
• The top few portion of the hole is sealed or
capped with an impervious soil or other
suitable material
• By having the pumping main vacuum
pressure, hydraulic gradient for flow to the
well points is increased.
• This method is suitable in layered or stratified
soil with k in the range of 0.1 to 10x10-4 cm/s
• Practical maximum height of lift is about 3 to 6
m.
 DEEPWELL DRAINAGE
• Consist of deep wells and pumps installed outside
the zone of construction
• And the water table lowered to the desired level
• Spacing- .8 to 8m depending on the level of water
table to be lowered, permeability of the strata etc
• Suitable where the soil formation is pervious with
depth.
• And also when a great depth of water lowering is
required or where head due to artesian pressure
has to be lowered
• Deeps wells may be combined with the well
point system on certain field condition for
lowering the ground water table
• Installation is done by sinking a cased borehole
having dia 200 to 300 mm larger than well casing
which depend on size of pump
• The inner well casing inserted after the
completion of borehole
• A perforated screen is installed over the length of
soil which required dewatering and is terminated
in a 3 to 5 m length of unperforated pipe which act
as a sump to collect any fine material which might
be drawn through filter mesh.
• Graded filter material is placed between the well
casing and the outer bore hole casing over the
length to be dewatered
• Then the outer casing is withdrawn in stages as
the filter material is placed
• The space above the screen is backfilled with any
available material.
• The water in well is then surged by a boring tool
to promote flow back and forth through the filter
• At the same time any unwanted fines which fall
into the sump are cleared out by bailer before
submersible pump is installed
• Heavy boring plant is required to sink the well
in very adverse formations like boulders rocks
or under other difficult environment
• The cost is relatively high
 ELECTRO OSMOSIS
• Electro osmosis:When an external electromotive
force is applied across a solid liquid interface the
movable diffuse double layer is displaced
tangentially with respect to the fixed layer
• As the surface of fine grained soil particles causes
negative charge, the positive ions in solution are
attracted towards the soil particles and concentrate
near the surfaces.
• Upon application of the electro motive force between
two electrodes in a soil medium the positive ions
adjacent to the soil particles and the water molecules
attached to the ions are attracted to the cathode and
are repelled by the anode.
• The free water in the interior of the void spaces is
carried along to the cathode by By making the cathode
a well, water can be collected in the well and then
pumped out

• Hypothetical distribution of ions between external and

internal phases in a clay pore shown in figure
• The electro osmotic flow(Qe) produced by an
applied electric field given by
Qe=keieA
Ke= elecrtro osmotic permeability cm/sec
• Hydraulic coefficient of permeability and
hydraulic flow depend on the size of voids in
the soil and consequently on the grain size
• ELECTRODES
• The simplest type of anode for normal app are
old pipes. Of 25 mm or 50 mm dia which can
easily driven into the soil
• Can placed either singly or in groups of two or
three
• The anode corrode considerably in the course
of few weeks of electro osmotic treatment
• They should be relpaced as soon as the
current drops to less than 30% of the
consumption
• Two basic arrangements of cathode wells are
- Either well arranged seperately but in close
proximity to the cathode
- Cathode and the well combined as one body
Application of electro osmosis for
stabilizaing slopes and for sheeted
excavations
 DESIGN STEPS FOR DEWATERING
SYSTEMS
1.SUBSOIL INVESTIGATION
 It is done to know the characteristics of soils adjacent
and beneath the excavation
 The depth and spacing of boring have to be properly
planned
 Samples should be taken at frequent intervals so as
to identify each soil type,permeability, characteristics
of soil and layers of clay or any other impervious
material
 The position of water table and substratum pressure
should be recorded
• Grain size distribution and permeability are
the two important factors determined from
the soil investigation
• Permeability determines from field Pumping
test(as per IS 9759:1981)
• Various methods are used to determine the
permeability
• A rough approximation of permeabilty may be
obtained from table
• A better estimate could be from a comparison
of grain size distribution curves of from
Hazens empirical relationship.
• k=C1D102
C1 =Constant varying between 100 and 150 in case
of pumping test is not conducted
D10 = diameter of particle (cm)
This eqn valid for uniform sand with uniformity
coefficient not greater than 2
2. Source and water table details
• The source of seepage depends on the geological
features of the area, near by streams or other
bodies of water, on the degree of perviousness of
the stratum and amount of drawdown
• streams close to the well act as line source of
seepage depending on the distance of the well
from the effective source of seepage
• This distance commonly known as the radius of
influence
• Empirical equation based on sichordts eqn
used to estimate the radius of influence
• R= C’(H-hw)k0.5
• R= radius of influence
• C’= a constant= 0.9( for gravity flow)
• H= depth of natural water flow
• H= head at the well
• The initial elevation of water table is
considered in deciding the elevation at which
the first stage of well points/wells
• In order to ensure the dry working condition
during construction it is preferable in most
soils to maintain the water table 1 to 2m
below the bottom excavation
3Distance of well points /wells from
source of seepage
• If the actual radius of influence is large
compared with the radius of the well, only an
approximate estimation of R may be sufficient.
• An accurate estimation of L should be made
for a particular dewatering system , since the
discharge is inversely proportional to the value
L
 4. EFFECTIVE WELL RADIUS
• The effective well radius , rw for a well point/well
is decided based on the installation of wells with
or without filter
o If a well point/well is installed without a gravel
or sand filter, effective well radius can be taken
as one-half the outside diameter of well screen
o When a gravel or sand filter is used around the
well screen the well radius is taken as the one
half the outside diameter of the filter
• If a well screen is installed without a filter in
the pervious stratum but a natural filter
formed around the screen due to surging, the
effective well radius will exceed one half of
the outside diameter of the well screen
 5 Discharge computations
• The discharge Q of the well is then calculated using the
formula given below:

• where Q is the discharge, k is the permeability, H is the

depth of strata, h is the height of water in the well, r is
the radius of well, R is the radius of influence.
• The following procedure is recommended by IS for
the design of filter
i)If H is the head (natural water table) and h0
is the head at the slot , then head reduction(H-h0 )at
a slot required to produce the desired residual
head hD should be computed from equations 3.5
to 3.8 (refer Dr. Purushothama raj page no 71 to75)
ii)Assuming h0= hD and that h0 -hw is the head
difference, well point spacing can be computed
from the following eqns,
a) For artesian case

b) For gravity case

 6.Design of filters
• The filter requirement for the filter material
shall be as under:
 7. Design and selection of well
screens
• Design of wells and well points must ensure that there
will be little resistance to water flowing through the
screen and riser pipe
• Prevent infiltration of sand during pumping, and resist
corrosion by water and soil
• Commercially available well points are of brass,
stainless steel screens mounted over galvenized, tin
dipped
• High capacity type of well points used when large flows
are forseen in the field
• The mesh or slot size of a screen should be smaller
than 80% or 70% size to avoid the infiltration of sand
• Screens commonly used for deep large diameter
wells are slotted steel or wood or perforated steel
pipe wrapped with galvanized
• Slotted steel or wooden screens are commercially
available with various width of slots
• In order to enhance the efficiency at the same
time to prevent infiltration use graded filter
material
• As per IS following criteria should be observed in
designing and selecting well screen
• Slot width less than or equal to D70
• Hole dia or width D80
  8.Well point in deep excavation
• If the water table could not be lowered more
than 6m or if a deep excavation has to made ,
it is advantages to use multistage well point
system
• The lowest header of the multistage system
should be located not more than about 4.5 m
above sub grade
 9.Selcetion of pumps and accessories
• Pumps, headers, discharge lines and power unit must be of
sufficient capacity to remove the required wells or well points
• The selection of pumps and power unit depends on the
various factors such as required discharge , suction lift plus
positive head including hydraulic head losses, air handling
capacity, power available, fuel economy and durability of
units
• A well point pump consisting of a self priming centrifugal
pump with attached vacuum pump
• If the depth of water table lowering is large(>4.5 m) but the
rate of pumpage for each well point is relatively small
• In selecting the power unit to be used for driving
pumps, consideration should be given to the initial
cost of the unit, and the cost of preparations,
including maintenance of fuel
• The capacity of a pump required for a dewatering
system is decided by horse power as obtained by
the horse power
•
• Where dynamic load=operating vacuum at the
pump in take+ discharge friction losses
 10. Deep bored wells
• Design is similar to well point system
• Well should be sufficiently large to accommodate
pump and to keep the lead loss low
• Deep wells are usually 15 to 45 cm diameter with
screens of 6 to 22.5 m length
• Pumping from wells done by surface pumps with
their suction pipes installed in bored wells
• Effectively used upto a depth of 7.5 .
• For adequate submergence of well screen and
pump, sufficient depth of pervious material
should be there beloe the level to which water
table is lowered
 11.Control of surface water
• In laying out a dewatering system, proper
steps should be taken to control surface
water so as to prevent flooding results in
failure of the system
• Uncontrolled run off cause serious erosion of
slopes
• Required measures are providing dikes,
ditches, sumps, pumps, mulching seeding to
minimize slope erosion
• The following factors should be considered
while designing and selecting measures to
control water
a.duration of construction
b. frequency of rainfall occurrence
c. Intensity of rainfall and the resulting run-off
d. size of area to be protected
e. available sump storage