The widespread utilisation of vacuum-assisted prefabricated vertical drains (PVD) for managing clayey soft ground has led to the development of numerous consolidation models. However, these models have limitations when describing the filtration behaviour of soil under high water content conditions, without the formation of a particle network. To effectively address this issue, in this work, based on the compressional rheology theory, a two-dimensional axisymmetric model incorporating the compressive yield stress Py(phi) and a hindered setting factor r(phi) was developed to couple the filtration and consolidation of soil under vacuum preloading. A novel approach for determining the unified phi-Py-r relationships was introduced. The equation governing such fluid/solid and solid/solid interactions was solved using the alternative direction implicit (ADI) method, and the numerical solutions were validated against the 1-D filtration cases, 3-D laboratory model tests, and large-scale field trials. Further parametric analysis suggests that the radius of the representative unit and r(phi) exclusively affect the dewatering rate of the clayey slurry, while the gel point and Py(phi) influence both the dewatering rate and the final deformation.

Significant movement of in-situ retaining walls is usually assumed to begin with bulk excavation. However, an increasing number of case studies show that lowering the pore water pressures inside a diaphragm wall-type basement enclosure prior to bulk excavation can cause wall movements in the order of some centimeters. This paper describes the results of a laboratory-scale experiment carried out to explore mechanisms of in situ retaining wall movement associated with dewatering inside the enclosure prior to bulk excavation. Dewatering reduces the pore water pressures inside the enclosure more than outside, resulting in the wall moving as an unpropped cantilever supported only by the soil. Lateral effective stresses in the shallow soil behind the wall are reduced, while lateral effective stresses in front of the wall increase. Although the associated lateral movement was small in the laboratory experiment, the movement could be proportionately larger in the field with a less stiff soil and a potentially greater dewatered depth. The implementation of a staged dewatering system, coupled with the potential for phased excavation and propping strategies, can effectively mitigate dewatering-induced wall and soil movements. This approach allows for enhanced stiffness of the wall support system, which can be dynamically adjusted based on real-time displacement monitoring data when necessary.

Dewatering and excavation are fundamental processes influencing soil deformation in deep foundation pit construction. Excavation causes stress redistribution through unloading, while dewatering lowers the groundwater level, increases effective stress, and generates seepage forces and compressive deformation in the surrounding soil. To systematically investigate their combined influence, this study conducted a scaled physical model test under staged excavation and dewatering conditions within a layered multi-aquifer-aquitard system. Throughout the experiment, soil settlement, groundwater head, and pore water pressure were continuously monitored. Two dimensionless parameters were introduced to quantify the contributions of dewatering and excavation: the total dewatering settlement rate eta dw and the cyclic dewatering settlement rate eta dw,i. Under different experimental conditions, eta dw ranges from 0.35 to 0.63, while eta dw,i varies between 0.32 and 0.82. Both settlement rates decrease with increasing diaphragm wall insertion depth and increase with greater dewatering depth inside the pit and higher soil permeability. An analytical formula for dewatering-induced soil settlement was developed using a modified layered summation method that accounts for deformation coordination between soil layers and includes correction factors for unsaturated zones. Although this approach is limited by scale effects and simplified boundary conditions, the findings offer valuable insights into soil deformation mechanisms under the combined influence of excavation and dewatering. These results provide practical guidance for improving deformation control strategies in complex hydrogeological environments.

Deep excavation engineering often causes deformation and destruction of adjacent existing shield tunnels. In previous studies, the influence of deep excavation on tunnel was mainly concentrated on tunnel deformation caused by retaining structure deformation, and the maximum range of the influence zone was approximately 4 times the excavation depth (4He). However, there has been little research on tunnel deformation caused by groundwater drawdown when tunnels are located outside the traditional influence range (4He) of the excavation. In this study, the deformation and damage characteristics of tunnels caused by dewatering in a deep excavation project were analysed using field data, and control methods of tunnel deformation caused by excavation dewatering in leaky aquifers were proposed and discussed. In this project, the maximum settlement reached 8.23 mm for tunnel at the location far than 4He from the excavation, and the influence range of the dewatering on tunnel was nearly 8He. Furthermore, the higher stiffness of the station reduced the settlement and convergence but aggravated the dislocation of the tunnels within approximately 40 m from the station, causing many leakage points. To protect the tunnels, groundwater recharge and deep-shallow-well dewatering scheme (dewatering wells in phreatic aquifer and confined aquifer were set independently) were proposed and applied during subsequent construction, which effectively avoided further tunnel settlement. Groundwater recharge also induced slight uplift and horizontal deformation of the tunnels to the opposite side of the excavation. In addition, recharge should be started in advance and remain in operation until the groundwater level was fully restored. For deep excavations near important infrastructures in soft soil strata with leaky aquifers, the same dewatering and recharge system in this case study is suggested to adopted.

Mining and using underground resources demand high water usage, producing significant waste with environmental risks. Methods like electrokinetics prove effective in accelerating dewatering and stabilizing structures. This research provides the results of experimental investigation on dewatering silty tailings obtained from Sungun Tailings Dam (East Azerbaijan, Iran) using the electrokinetic water recovery method. Previous studies primarily examined the electrokinetic process in steady-state flow and saturated soil, with limited exploration of unsaturated soil parameters. In this research, the electrokinetic process in steady-state flow was initially investigated, and the saturated electro-osmotic permeability was determined. Subsequently, experiments were conducted in non-steady-state flow and unsaturated conditions, measuring the influential parameters with soil moisture sensors and tensiometers. Results show that decreasing sample moisture through electro-osmotic flow increases negative pore water pressure. Tailings' electrical conductivity is more influenced by moisture content, with a steeper reduction slope concerning volumetric moisture reduction over time. pH assessments show soil acidity on the anode side and alkalinity on the cathode side. Higher applied voltage gradients result in increased maximum power consumption. Importantly, the results caution against assuming that higher applied voltage improves the electro-osmotic process, as it may lead to issues such as deep sample cracking, void space creation, interrupted electrical flow, and energy loss.

Groundwater recharge around the protected buildings to offset the impact of the sharp drop of groundwater caused by the dewatering operation of the surrounding foundation has been successfully implemented worldwide. However, due to the variable engineering geological conditions, it is particularly important to summarize the site-specific practical experience of groundwater recharge. The opening time of dewatering is not always synchronous with that of groundwater recharge in surrounding area, the subsoils often had certain settlements before recharging. It is difficult to find the influence of this small deformation on the physical and mechanical properties of soils through laboratory tests. Based on the actual project of groundwater recharge in Nanjing, China, this paper compares the previous research experience in different areas, summarizes the feasibility of this method in floodplain area of Nanjing and the typical characteristics of surface vertical displacement. This study, which was based on the CPTU tests carried out in different periods of the study area, reveals that the hydraulic conductivity of aquifuge I decreases slightly with the OCR, undrained shear strength and compression modulus have certain increases due to the dewatering and recharging operations. The little differences of the aquifuge can not be found by laboratory tests.

Sewage sludge requires effective dewatering and high nutrients retention before disposal for agricultural application. Pressurized electro-osmotic dewatering (PEOD) process with low energy consumption can effectively remove water from sludge, but the influences of PEOD process on nutrients for agricultural application still lacks in-depth research. In this study, the influences of PEOD process on nutrients for agricultural application were investigated, including organic matter, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and silicon contents. Layered experiments were conducted to investigate the layered variation of nutrients in sludge and to understand the potential change mechanisms. The experimental results showed that PEOD process caused small losses (<10%) of organic matter and total phosphorus (TP) in sludge, but caused 11.2-18.4% loss of total nitrogen (TN). PEOD process also caused 18.6-27.0% loss of total potassium (TK) and over 80% loss of available potassium in sludge, and could weaken the potential salt damage during the agricultural application of sludge. Furthermore, the available phosphorus content of sludge in the anode area increased significantly after the PEOD process, indicating that PEOD process could enhance the phosphorus bioavailability of sludge in the anode area. Besides, PEOD process caused a slight loss of silicon components in sludge, but improved the long-term silicon dissolution and release ability of sludge. This work could expand the knowledge about the influences of PEOD process on sludge nutrients and provide scientific guidance for the agricultural application of PEOD sludge.

Pre-excavation dewatering (PED) can induce centimeter-level movements in the enclosure wall. Current foundation pit design theory only proposes a calculation method for excavation-induced force and deformation of the enclosure wall based on the elastic fulcrum method, which does not address PED-induced wall deflections. To continue using the elastic fulcrum method for calculating PED-induced wall deflections, it is crucial to determine the distribution of earth pressure on both sides of the enclosure wall during PED. This study aims to propose a novel model for calculating the PED-induced earth pressure on both sides of the enclosure wall. First, we analyzed the shape and influence range of disturbed soil on both sides of the enclosure wall during PED. Then, we explored the characteristics of soil strain distribution in the disturbed zone and proposed a distribution mode for the soil strain. Furthermore, we established a mathematical equation presenting the relationship between the soil strain and enclosure wall deflections, and proposed a calculation model of earth pressure considering the wall deflections during PED. The proposed calculation model accurately reflects the nonlinear relationship between wall deflections and earth pressure during PED. The obtained model, with its simple formulation and easily available data, could provide an important reference for predicting PED-induced enclosure wall deflections.

Simulation-optimization methods are widely used in dewatering optimization. However, traditional simulation-optimization methods do not address the optimization of well screen length and depth. This study proposes a modified simulation-optimization method for confined aquifer dewatering optimization, which is capable of determining the optimal screen length and depth. The proposed method is based on the linear programming method, and the multivariate adaptive regression splines method is also introduced to develop the prediction model for the parameters required in the linear programming model. A hypothetical case of deep excavation dewatering was optimized using the proposed method to demonstrate its feasibility, with the optimal pumping rate, screen length and depth of each well computed. Furthermore, parametric studies were performed to investigate the effects of some key factors on the optimization results, such as the number of considered pumping wells, required drawdown, insertion ratio of the waterproof curtain, aquifer anisotropy coefficient, and prescribed well screen. The results show that optimal total pumping rate and screen length generally increase with increasing required drawdown and aquifer anisotropy coefficient, while they decrease with increasing well number and insertion ratio of the waterproof curtain. Adjusting screen length is more critical to the optimization results since lower screen depth is always preferred. Optimizing well screen is more essential for higher well number, insertion ratio of the waterproof curtain, and lower aquifer anisotropy coefficient.

During the excavation of the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement tunnel in Seattle, Washington, a 17.5 m diameter tunnel boring machine (TBM) nicknamed Big Bertha was damaged after encountering unexpected subsurface conditions. Significant dewatering of multiple aquifers was required to reach the TBM for repairs. Groundwater drawdown and soil consolidation associated with dewatering created a 0.4 km(2) region of initial subsidence with maximum vertical settlements exceeding 2.5 cm between August and December 2014. Dewatering wells remained operational until January 2016 and likely contributed to observed groundwater drawdown in areas outside the region of initial subsidence. To determine how an urban landscape with complex and poorly constrained geologic and hydrologic conditions responds to an extended period of dewatering within multiple aquifers, the rate, duration, spatial extent, and magnitude of dewatering-related displacements were analyzed by combining three paths of Sentinel-1 interferometric synthetic aperture radar data spanning November 2014 to October 2019 into a time series of vertical surface deformation using the minimum acceleration algorithm. Our results show that post-dewatering ground rebound within this complex hydrogeologic system occurred at faster rates and with more significant spatial deformation variability than initial subsidence, reaching rates of up to 17 cm/year coupled with potentially hazardous differential rebounds across short distances. In addition, prolonged groundwater pumping at depths greater than 60 m appears to have induced delayed subsidence over a larger area of similar to 20 km(2), reaching magnitudes of up to 3 cm and lasting for over 3 years after the cessation of pumping.