The Program and its Applications

by Ari Cohen

Background
Developed at the Technical University of Delft for Dutch DPWWM Initially was intended to analyze the soft soil river embankments of the lowlands of Holland Soon after, the company Plaxis BV was formed, and the program was expanded to cover a broader range of geotechnical issues

The Netherlands

Getting Started
PLAXIS is comprised of four interconnected but separate interfaces Input Calculations Output Curves

Tutorial 1: The Modeling the Settlement of a Circular Footing on Sand

1. Choose new or existing project

2. General Settings

3. Plane Strain or Axisymmetry / 15-Node or 6-Node

4. Plane Strain or Axisymmetry

4. Plane Strain or Axisymmetry Cont.

y

5. 15-Node or 6-Node

5. 15-Node or 6-Node Cont.

6. Dimensions

7. Geometry Contour

8. Loads & Boundary Conditions

Prescribed Displacements
1. 2. 3. Special Conditions placed on geometry lines that control the displacement of the lines Drawn over geometry lines Can be altered by double clicking on the geometry line associated with it

Fixities
1. 2. 3. Prescribed displacements equal to zero Can be of horizontal, vertical, or total (horizontal & vertical) Fixities take priority over displacements and other loads

Standard Fixities
1. Convenient and fast input option for many applications

Tractions
1. 2. 3. Distributed loads applied to geometry lines Input values given in the dimensions force per unit area Can be altered by double clicking on the geometry line associated with it

Point Forces
1. 2. Are actually line loads in the out-of-plane direction Can have vertical and horizontal components

Fixed Rotations
1. Fixes the rotational degree of freedom of a beam

Select Standard fixities button

8. Loads & Boundary Conditions cont.

Select Prescribed displacement button

8. Loads & Boundary Conditions cont.

9. Material Properties
Database with material data sets
1. Soil properties and material properties of structures are stored within the database as four types of material sets 1. 2. 3. 4. Soils & Interfaces Beams Geotextiles & Anchors

Modeling of Soil Behavior

1. There exist three types of soil models that PLAXIS supports: 1. 2. 3. 2. 3. Mohr-Coulomb model Hardening-Soil model & Soft-Soil-Creep model

Mohr-Coulomb is most often used as good soil data is not always available to the engineer or scientist Modeling with the Mohr-Coulomb default requires the following five variables to be input: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Youngs modulus, (E) Poissons ratio, (n) cohesion, (c) friction angle, (f) and dilatancy angle, (y)

9. Material Properties cont.

All clusters and structural elements in a given model must be assigned a material before a mesh can be generated The following soil parameters will be used for the footing settlement example:

Click Materials button

9. Material Properties cont.

Select New material

9. Material Properties cont.

Type sand and leave the other default inputs

Select Enter given New data material

9. Material Properties cont.

Enter Select given data New and material click Ok

9. Material Properties cont.

Drag & Drop the Sand material into the cluster

9. Material Properties cont.

10. Mesh Generation

Global Coarseness
Distinction is made between five levels of global coarseness: Very coarse, Coarse, Medium, Fine, and Very fine. Number of mesh elements generated ranges from about 50 elements for the coarse setting to about 1000 elements for the very fine setting

Global Refinement
Automatically generates a refined mesh; one step per selection

Local Coarseness
In areas where it may not be necessary to have a very refined mesh, the mesh may be made more coarse by adjusting the Local element size factor for a particular geometry point. This can be accessed by double clicking on any geometry point

Local Refinement
Instead of adjusting the Local element size factor, clusters, lines, or points can be selected and the local refinement option can be used

Select Generate mesh

Once the mesh window appears select Update

10. Mesh Generation cont.

11. Initial Conditions

Once the geometry model has been created and the mesh has been generated, the Initial conditions must be inputted. There are two different modes within the initial conditions tab: Water conditions mode and the Geometry configuration mode

Water Conditions mode

1. Water Weight:
In projects that involve pore pressures, the input of water weight in necessary to distinguish between effective stresses and pore pressures. PLAXIS default water weight is set to 10kN/m 3 Pore pressures and external water pressures can be generated on the basis of phreatic lines. With a phreatic line it is understood that water pressures above the line are zero and increase linearly with depth below the line. The phreatic line can be a general or user defined type

2. Phreatic Lines:

3. Groundwater Flow: In addition to generating water pressures using a phreatic line, water pressures can
also be generated using groundwater flow calculations. This requires the input of groundwater head boundary conditions

4. Water Pressure Generation: After a phreatic line or groundwater boundary conditions are specified,
the generate water pressures button is selected to complete the water conditions process

Geometry Configuration mode

1. Deactivating Geometry Components:
In projects where embankments and structures are to be constructed the geometry model will have some elements that are initially not active. These elements must be deactivated in this mode. By default PLAXIS activates all elements of the model outlined in the previous geometry setup stage. Clicking on a particular element in this mode determines if it will be on or not Initial stresses in a body are influenced by the weight of the material and the history of its formation. The stress state is generally characterized by an initial vertical stress, sn,0 which is related by the coefficient of lateral earth pressure K 0. A default value is given based on Jakys formula (1-sinf).

2. Initial Stress Generation (K0-Procedure):

1.Select Initial conditions button and accept default water weight

2. Water levels will not be generated in this example so proceed to generate initial stresses

11. Initial Conditions cont.

Accept default K0 parameters

11. Initial Conditions cont.

Length of lines note relative magnitude of principal stresses Orientation of lines note principal direction

11. Initial Conditions cont.

Finally it is time to proceed to the Calculation phase of the program

11. Initial Conditions cont.

Questions?