Physical Hydrogeology for Ground Investigation - 23 November 2017

ONE DAY COURSE for GEOTECHNICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERS REQUIRING PRACTICAL UNDERSTANDING OF HYDROGEOLOGY for the DESIGN OF GROUND INVESTIGATIONS.

Course Outline
Relevant information on the management of groundwater, both within a design or during construction, is a necessity for successful civil and geo-environmental engineering. This information comes from an appropriately designed ground investigation. The design of that investigation requires a working knowledge of water levels which need to be measured and the methods required to measure and interpret them properly. Many mistakes are made because boreholes are not drilled at locations and to depths appropriate for groundwater studies, piezometers that are too long are installed, water levels are read over too short a period and with no reference to rainfall or other recharge, piezometric levels are confused with water tables and perched water, the effects of elasticity not even considered and the lack of water strikes during drilling in clays, and other low permeability strata, misinterpreted as them being above the water table.  This course will deal with these and other commonly occurring mistakes made in practice which can be avoided with a little thought beforehand.

The descriptions of groundwater invariably constitute crucial building blocks for conceptual ground models and contribute quantitative information to the observational and analytical models that follow. Water levels form the basis for important design decisions and should always be considered when designing a ground investigation.

This course puts physical hydrogeology into the broader framework of both engineering and environmental investigations and provides practical experience in the design of ground investigations for groundwater studies.

Course Structure
The course will involve personal tuition and exercises completed in class.

09.00 - 10.30      Hydraulic heads; their measurement; differences between water tables and piezometric surfaces and the problem of perched water.
10.30 – 10.45      Tea, Coffee& Mobile Phone break
10.45 – 12.15      Equipotential lines and surfaces; hydraulic gradients; determining directions of flow and implications for location of boreholes
12.15 – 12.30      Exercise; interpreting a BH log; heads, directions of flow & pore water pressures

12.30 – 13.30      LUNCH (provided)

13.30 – 14.30      Inflow and outflow boundaries, Darcy’s Law and its use including the sketching of flow nets
14.30 – 15.30      Exercises; calculations of discharge and pore water pressure from well designed and    poorly designed ground investigations
15.30 – 16.30      Elasticity and storage
16.30 – 17.00      How to persuade the client to pay

Course Presenter
Dr. Michael de Freitas CGeol, CWEM, is the Emeritus Reader of Engineering Geology at Imperial College London and Co-Director of First Steps Ltd. He has extensive experience in the problems inadequate logging bring to the design and construction processes in civil and environmental engineering, and the delays and claims that can follow. This course was established in 2008 and many speak highly of the help it has given them in practice.