Effect of Temperature Variation on Seepage Flow and Factor of Safety

Abstract

Seepage of water through soils can be affected by the temperature variations; the temperature variation is directly related to the hydraulic conductivity (k) which represents the ability of water to percolate through soil voids. A case of water flow under dams was taken as an example, it was simulated using Geo-Slope (SEEP/W) 2007 computer program, the variation of hydraulic conductivity k(T) (hydraulic conductivity as a function of temperature) was computed using Add-In feature in SEEP/W as an additional user defined function that can be used similarly to the other functions that were supplied by the computer program. Temperature of 40°C–50°C was used to represent ground surface (typical average temperature during summer season in Iraq) with initial temperature of 20 °C for inside soil (for a period of six months 180 days) to show the variation of flow quantity in m3/day besides others, the variation of water flow was shown to be about 44.94%, the variation of exit gradient was about 16.94%, and the variation in F.O.S. against heave was about 14.49%.