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Plaxis Tutorial 01
Plaxis Tutorial 01
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
1. Choose new or
existing project
2. General Settings
5. 15-Node or 6-Node
6. Dimensions
7. Geometry Contour
2.
3.
Fixities
1.
2.
3.
Standard Fixities
1.
Tractions
1.
2.
3.
Point Forces
1.
2.
Fixed Rotations
1.
Select
Standard
fixities
button
Select
Prescribed
displacement
button
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.
Beams
3.
Geotextiles &
4.
Anchors
Mohr-Coulomb model
2.
3.
Soft-Soil-Creep model
2.
3.
2.
3.
cohesion, (c)
4.
5.
Click
Materials
button
Select
New
material
Type sand
and leave
the other
default
inputs
Select
Enter
given
New
data
material
Enter
Select
given
data
New
and
material
click Ok
Global Refinement
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
Select
Generate
mesh
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/m3
2. Phreatic Lines:
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
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
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 K0. A default value is given based on Jakys
formula (1-sinf).
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
Accept default
K0 parameters
Length of lines
note relative
magnitude of
principal
stresses
Orientation of
lines note
principal
direction
Finally it is time
to proceed to
the Calculation
phase of the
program
Questions?