PLAXIS

PLAXIS stands for Plain strain and Axial symmetry. It is used for the analysis of deformation, stability and groundwater flow in geotechnical engineering.

Tutorials for PLAXIS 2D can be found by visiting the link https://communities.bentley.com/products/geotech-analysis/w/plaxis-soilvision-wiki/46137/manuals—plaxis

Interfaces are joint elements to be added to plates or geogrids to allow for a proper modelling of soil-structure interaction. Interfaces may be used to simulate, for example, the thin zone of intensely shearing material at the contact between a plate and the surrounding soil. Interfaces can be created next to plate or geogrid elements or between two soil polygons.

GSE stands for Geotechnical SELECT entitlement. It is an is an additional subscription system on top of the professional software licenses. Geotechnical SELECT subscribers benefit from the latest releases of their PLAXIS software maintenance and support from PLAXIS technical experts. In addition, some features of PLAXIS programs are only available to Geotechnical SELECT subscribers.

Positive pore stresses may also occur as a result of unloading in undrained materials. However, there is a limit to the amount of positive pore stresses (pore water tension) that can occur, which is the cavitation stress. This limit can be taken into account in PLAXIS 2D by selecting the Cavitation cut-off option and setting the cavitation stress.

One 15-node element can be thought of a composition of four 6-node elements, since the total number of nodes and stress points is equal. However, one 15-node element is more powerful than four 6-node elements as the former provides a fourth order interpolation for displacements and the numerical integration involves twelve Gauss points (stress points), whereas the latter provides a second order interpolation for displacements and the numerical integration involves three Gauss points.

In some practical problems, like the soil surface near a trench in clay sometimes shows tensile cracks which indicates that soil may also fail in tension instead of in shear. Such behaviour can be included in a PLAXIS analysis by selecting the tension cut-off and entering the tensile strength. Tension cut-off points are generally the visualization of all stress points that exceeds the entered value.