Steady State Overview
Finite element groundwater seepage analysis can be carried out with RS2. The seepage analysis can be used in conjunction with stress analysis (e.g. to calculate pore pressures for effective stress analysis). It can also be used as a standalone groundwater option, independently of the stress analysis in RS2 (i.e. you can run a seepage analysis without necessarily computing a stress analysis). Flow rates, hydraulic gradients and other quantities can be computed, in addition to pore pressure.
The steps required for steady state groundwater seepage analysis are summarized below.
Project Settings
You must first set the Groundwater Method = Steady State FEA in the Project Settings 
dialog.
On the General page of the Project Settings dialog, you can choose:
- Permeability Units
Material Properties
In the Define Hydraulic Properties 
dialog you can define the permeability characteristics of your materials for steady state groundwater seepage analysis.
In the Define Material Properties 
dialog, you can select the Initial Water Condition to be Dry, Pore Water Pressure, Ru, or Grid.
Groundwater Boundary Conditions
The hydraulic boundary conditions for seepage analysis are defined with the Set Boundary Conditions 
option in the Groundwater menu (e.g. total head, pressure head, infiltration, nodal flow, unknown, seepage face, etc).
Discharge Sections
To compute the groundwater flow volume across a surface use the Add Discharge Section 
option in the Groundwater menu to define a discharge section.
Compute
The main Compute 
option will compute both seepage and stress analysis.
To compute the seepage analysis only (without computing the stress analysis), you can use the Compute Groundwater 
option. This allows you to view and verify the seepage analysis results, before proceeding to the stress analysis.
Groundwater Results
After computing a seepage analysis you can view contours of groundwater results including pore pressure, total head, hydraulic gradient, velocity etc. If discharge sections were defined you can view the volumetric flow rates across any section. Other results such as flow vectors can be displayed.