Location of Water Table by FEM and Verification by Electrical Analogy Experiments

Sheet piles are used to lower the water table that exists downstream of a sheet pile. Under certain conditions of the upstream water heads and sheet pile embedment depths, a free boundary in the form of the water table may occur on the downstream. This free boundary is not known a priori and must be determined as a part of the solution; to make this possible, additional boundary conditions need to be satisfied on the free boundary. Analytical solutions are readily available for the location of such water tables, but with the impervious bottom located at infinite depth and for rectilinear boundary geometry. In the present study, the location of the water table downstream of a sheet pile with the impervious bottom located at finite depth is obtained using Finite‐Element Method (FEM). An experimental solution using electrical analogy is attempted to validate the solution obtained using FEM. Parametric studies are also carried out to study the various parameters affecting the location of the water table. Copyright © 1995, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved