An Analytical Method for Groundwater Inflow into a Drained Circular Tunnel

Abstract

Groundwater inflow estimation is essential for the design and construction of tunnel and the assessment of the environmental impacts. Analytical solutions used in current engineering practice do not adequately account for the effect of the excavation-induced drawdown, which leads to significant change in pore water pressure distribution and reductions of the water level beyond tunnel. Based on the numerical analysis results, this article proposes semianalytical method to predict the height of lowered water level and groundwater tunnel inflow. The tunnel problem is conceptualized as two-dimensional flow in a plane perpendicular to the tunnel axis. The analytical formula, considering the effect of the excavation-induced drawdown, provides a better prediction of the tunnel inflow compared to the existing analytical formulas, even for the cases with inclined groundwater level.