With the acceleration of urban modernization and increasing pressure on surface transportation, tunnel construction has been widely adopted as an important means of alleviating traffic congestion. To assess the impact of constructed tunnels on groundwater seepage, this study designed a scaled experimental model based on the average diameter of the Jinan subway tunnel and measured the seepage discharge under different water pressures. A numerical simulation model was subsequently developed to verify the reliability of the experimental setup. The study examined seepage behavior under the combined influence of upstream–downstream pressure differentials, stratum permeability coefficients, and tunnel water-blocking coefficients. The results indicate that seepage discharge exhibits a quadratic relationship with the pressure differential and linear relationships with both the permeability coefficient and the water-blocking area coefficient. Furthermore, through theoretical derivation and model fitting, a quantitative formula was established to predict groundwater seepage under the combined influence of these parameters.
Wang et al. (Fri,) studied this question.