Reduction of Groundwater Buoyancy on the Basement in Weak-Permeable/Impervious Foundations

At present, groundwater buoyancy is directly calculated by Archimedes’ principle for the antifloating design of underground structures. However, this method may not be applicable to weak-permeable/impervious soils, e.g., clayey foundations, because there is a significant difference between the groundwater buoyancy obtained from field measurements and that calculated by Archimedes’ principle. In order to determine whether the method of calculating groundwater buoyancy in weak-permeable/impervious soil layers by Archimedes’ principle is reasonable, this paper investigated the groundwater buoyancy on the basement in such foundations through laboratory model tests. The following factors that may influence the magnitude of groundwater buoyancy were investigated: change of groundwater level, duration of pore water pressure, and buried depth of the basement. In this study, model test results show that the groundwater buoyancy obtained from measurements is evidently lower than that calculated by Archimedes’ principle. Reduction extent can be expressed by a “reduction coefficient,” which can be calculated by a fitting formula. Moreover, experimental groundwater buoyancy increases with the increase in the groundwater level, and it almost does not change with the growth of duration of pore water pressure. Reduction coefficient ranges between 0.25 and 0.52 depending on different buried depths of the basement. In general, experimental groundwater buoyancy decreases with the increase in the buried depth of the basement.

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