THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES SCHOOL OF CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING CVEN2002 NUMERICS ASSIGNMENT 2012 FLOW

BENEATH EMBANKMENTS 1 OBJECTIVES

This assignment has been designed with four specific goals: 1. To give you practical experience implementing several of the numerical techniques that we will be learning about this semester. 2. To instruct you in the writing, testing and use of a reasonably complex computer program. 3. To give you practice in applying numerical methods to engineering systems. The specific task that needs to be completed is for you to write your own computer program that is capable of predicting velocities and the total flow beneath an embankment dam. A conceptual diagram of the problem is shown in Figure 1. An impervious embankment of width w overlies a foundation of hydraulic conductivity K. The hydraulic conductivity defines the relationship between the spatial rate of change of hydraulic head H within the foundation. It is assumed that the embankment is located centrally upon a rectangular region of foundation material which is of width L and depth D. Static water levels h1 and h2 are assumed on either side of the embankment.

Figure 1. A cross section through a conceptual embankment overlying a permeable stratum.

2 SIGNIFICANCE
Assessment of the flow beneath embankments is critical to determining potential for removal of foundation material. Internal erosion can occur when soil particles in the foundation beneath an impervious embankment are carried downstream by a seepage flow. Backward erosion relates to the detachment of soil particles when the seepage exits to a free unfiltered surface. The detached particles are transported away by the seepage flow and the process gradually works its way towards 1/5

CVEN2002 Assignment the upstream side of the embankment or its foundation until a continuous pipe is formed. In cases of failure, often sand boil activity was observed on the downstream side. Backward erosion and piping are the fundamental causes of about half of large embankment dam failures throughout the world (Foster et al., 2000).

3 METHOD
As we shall see during the course of this semester, every numerical model must include the following components: 1. Discretisation The region of interest (the so-called domain or the solution domain in this case the rectangular foundation section) must be discretised: broken down into a set of representative points. Finite differences require that these points be located on a rectilinear mesh with the spacings between mesh points h and k in the horizontal and vertical directions respectively. 2. A set of governing equations The modelling process is impossible unless equations are available that represent the physical process we are wanting to simulate. For this study, we will use the Laplace equation: 2 H = 2 H 2 H + =0 x2 z2 (1)

3. A numerical representation of this set of governing equations We will assume numerical expressions for the partial derivatives that are accurate to second order accuracy in the mesh spacing. The 2nd order accurate finite difference form of equation (2) is: 2(h 2+k 2 )H i , j +k 2 H i1, j+k 2 H i+1, j+h2 H i , j1+h 2 H i , j+1=0 where Hi,j is the head at any internal grid point i,j. (2)

4. Boundary conditions The domain must be bounded and at each boundary there are potential effects of the boundary on the interior of the domain. The mesh must be constructed so that all boundary points coincide with the boundary of the mesh. An equation must be specified at every boundary point. At the inflow and outflow boundaries, the equation is trivial and the value of Hi.j at these point is simply the total head. For example, at each inflow point: H i , j =h1 (3)

At the other boundaries, a finite difference expression must be constructed by combining the governing equation with another equation stating that the gradient in H normal to the boundary is zero. We need four expressions for the left, right, upper (that is, beneath the embankment) and lower boundaries which are respectively:

2/5

CVEN2002 Assignment 2(h +k )H i , j +2 k H i+1, j+h H i , j 1+h H i , j +1=0 2(h 2+k 2 )H i , j +2 k 2 H i1, j+h2 H i , j 1+h2 H i , j +1=0 2(h +k ) H i , j +k H i1, j+k H i+1, j+2h H i , j 1=0 2(h 2+k 2 ) H i , j +k 2 H i1, j+k 2 H i+1, j+2h 2 H i , j +1=0
2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

(4) (5) (6) (7)

There are two special boundary condition points: the lower left grid point and the lower right grid point. The applicable boundary conditions at these are respectively: 2(h 2+k 2 ) H i , j +2k 2 H i+1, j +2h 2 H i , j+1=0 2(h 2+k 2 ) H i , j +2k 2 H i1, j +2h 2 H i , j+1=0 (8) (9)

5. A solution method for the numerical representation The solution method to be adopted here is to write a MATLAB program which constructs the full set of linear equations that incorporates an equation for each boundary and internal point (note that if the inflow and outflow boundaries are used, you can reduce the number of equations). These will need to be assembled into a large matrix by mapping each point i,j to a row and column number in the matrix. This can be done as follows. Let m=(L/h)+1 and n=(D/k)+1 with i and j being 1 on the left and lower boundaries respectively. The grid point number l of any point i,j can be evaluated as: l=(i1) n+ j (10) To find a solution, the matrix equation: (11) A H =b is to be solved where A is the coefficient matrix, H is our (unknown) column vector of the head values at each grid point number l and b is a column vector containing the constant value from the equation corresponding to each grid point. Specifically, row l of A will contain the head coefficients from the corresponding equation for the point i,j. Almost all of the values in row l will be zero except for each column that corresponds to a point that is included in our finite difference equation. As an example, let us assume that we have h1=3.0, h2=1.0, L=100.0, D=20.0, m=11 and n=5. Therefore, h=10 and k=5. A will be a 55 by 55 matrix (big, but not very). will both have 55 rows. H and b

The first row in A, H and b will correspond to the point i=1, j=1 which is the lower left corner. Therefore, l=1. All entries in the first row of A will be zero except for columns

3/5

CVEN2002 Assignment 1, 6 and 2 which will contain the values -250, 50 and 200 respectively. The corresponding value in row 1 of b will be zero. The point i=1, j=5 is the top left corner and l=5. Therefore, all entries in the 5th row of A will be zero except for column 5 itself which will contain the value 1. The corresponding value in the 5th row of b will be 3.0. The point i=7, j=3 is buried in the interior of the mesh with l=33. Therefore, all entries in the 33rd row of A will be zero except for columns 28, 32, 33, 34 and 38 which will contain the values 25, 100, -250, 100 and 25 respectively. The corresponding value in the 33rd row of b will be zero. The process then becomes forming the (large) matrix in MATLAB and then asking MATLAB to compute the solution value at each mesh point. For the purposes of this assignment, you just compute A-1 b to obtain H . It would be appropriate to make a nice contour plot of the H values for the mesh and ensure that the values at the inflow and outflow boundaries match your boundary conditions. Once you have the solution, the velocity components can be computed (using 2nd order accurate finite differences again) as: H H i1, j H =K i +1, j x 2h H i , j +1H i , j1 H w=K =K z 2k u=K

(12)

Therefore, if the head reduces by 2 m over a distance of 20m in a material of hydraulic conductivity of 10-7ms-1, we anticipate a velocity of 10-8ms-1 in the direction in which the head reduces. For your given input data, you should at least include in your report: a neat contour plot the head values within the domain. a neat velocity vector plot the velocity values within the domain. quantification of the maximum velocity within your mesh. quantification of the total volume flux beneath the embankment. The total volume flux of water beneath the embankment can be determined by integrating the velocity normal to a defined surface. The total volume flux per unit length along the crest of the embankment q can be computed as:

q= dA un
u where is the velocity vector at the defined surface, n is the local unit normal vector of the defined surface and dA is an elemental area of the defined surface. Because the defined surface can be located beneath the centre of the embankment, is therefore planar and of unit thickness, equation (13) reduces to:
D

(13)

q= u( y )dy
0

(14)

4/5

CVEN2002 Assignment

Assuming that there is an odd number of grid points in the y direction (an even number of panels), the integral in equation (14) can be computed at a set of vertical grid points i using the Trapezoidal rule

0 u( y )dyk

ui , 1 2

+u i , 2+u i , 3+u i , 4++ui , n1 +u i , n +

u i , n+1 2

(15)

4 SOME HINTS FOR UNDERTAKING THE ASSIGNMENT

(a) Completing this assignment will require solid work over the four weeks. Leaving it until the last moment will result in utter disaster. (b) The problem can be broken down into the following components: sorting out the geometry. assembling the matrix and RHS vector. inverting the matrix. multiplying matrix and RHS vector to obtain the head values. contouring the head values. determining the velocities from the head values. plotting the velocities as a series of vectors. computing the total volume flux through the system per unit width of embankment. (c) The beauty of MATLAB is that each step can be done interactively and checked without actually doing any programming. The program just follows the set of steps that you take to solve the problem interactively. (d) Each one of the steps above can be checked out by using dummy data to ensure that you understand what each command does.

5 ASSIGNMENT PRESENTATION
For the assignment presentation, you must prepare a brief engineering report including: 1. Introduction 2. Numerical methods 3. Results and Discussion 4. Conclusions and Recommendations 5. References MATLAB includes some neat plotting packages including vector which will give you a neat vector diagram showing arrays of u and w components as a vector diagram and contour which should give you a neat colour contour diagram of your head values within the solution domain. Calls to these packages should be made from your program to make the results figures in your report pop up automatically on the screen. You should suitably and generously illustrate your report. You are also required to e-mail a copy of your m file to x.barthelemy@wrl.unsw.edu.au and this code will be used to verify that it produces the outputs and for automatic comparision with other student programs to ensure that it is entirely your own work.

6 REFERENCES
Foster, M., Fell, R., Spannagle, M. (2000) Canadian Geotech. J., 37(5), 1000-1056.

5/5