Design Ground Water Level
Design Ground Water Level
(OP)
I have a project coming up in south Florida that is a few miles inland. The project will have floor levels below the water table. Does anyone know how to determine the ground water level in a hurricane event.






RE: Design Ground Water Level
Most of the excess water would run off and any groundwater effects would be transient.
For buoyancy, I usually take the groundwater to be at the ground surface. It's a little conservative, but not far off in most of Florida and SE Georgia.
If you have floor levels below the water table, how are you going to keep them dry?
Why do you need to know the groundwater level in a hurricane event?
ALthough hurricanes usually have high rainfall, slow moving sub-hurricane storms can drop much more rainfall.
RE: Design Ground Water Level
RE: Design Ground Water Level
I would assume that the ground water level during the hurricane event matches the seasonal high groundwater level. Another thing about practicing in Florida is that in many places the ground water level is only a few feet down. Heck I can dig a two or three foot hole in my back yard and usually strike water.
That all said I usually don't worry about it. There are other things like soil cohesion, friction, load redistributions that probably would offset water weight.
John Southard, M.S., P.E.
http://www.pdhlibrary.com
RE: Design Ground Water Level
While the soil is very porous the rainfall of a wet storm will raise the ground water level of adjacent areas and it would occur during the wet season when the water table is at it's highest.To assume the water at the ground surface would be very conservative.
If you estimate and miss by say two feet you are missing the design loads by 125 psf which is a major diffrence.
RE: Design Ground Water Level
RE: Design Ground Water Level
RE: Design Ground Water Level
RE: Design Ground Water Level
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All you need to do is type in the address of your project and see if it falls under any type of flooding requirements. If it does, then you need to design in accordance with ASCE 24.
If you are a few miles away from the coastline I would suspect this shouldn't be a problem... but it only takes 5 min to look up. You never know.
I'm actually am in the middle of a project with a naïve contractor who ignored this requirement and they are now in it deep... literally... according to the FIRM map they are 10' below base flood elevation. Now they are scrambling trying to figure out how to meet the requirements with as little cost impact to the structure.
RE: Design Ground Water Level
That's where the problem comes from. If you have a storm surge you can get the elevations but if you are a little inland and if the elevation of grade is something like 14' all I can find is the elevation of groundwater when the borings were taken.
RE: Design Ground Water Level