Plaxis finite element code for soil and rock analyses

Plaxis Bulletin
issue 21 / March 2007

Simulation of a volcano in Plaxis

Structural reliability analysis of deep excavations Numerical simulation of a trial wall on expansive soil in Sudan Application of the ground anchor facility in Plaxis 3D Foundation

Colophon

Editorial New Developments

3 4 8

the Plaxis Bulletin is the combined magazine of Plaxis B.V. and the Plaxis Users association (nl). the Bulletin focuses on the use of the finite element method in geotechnical engineering practise and includes articles on the practical application of the Plaxis programs, case studies and backgrounds on the models implemented in Plaxis. the Bulletin offers a platform where users of Plaxis can share ideas and experiences with each other. the editors welcome submission of papers for the Plaxis Bulletin that fall in any of these categories. the manuscript should preferably be submitted in an electronic format, formatted as plain text without formatting. it should include the title of the paper, the name(s) of the authors and contact information (preferably email) for the corresponding author(s). the main body of the article should be divided into appropriate sections and, if necessary, subsections. if any references are used, they should be listed at the end of the article. the author should ensure that the article is written clearly for ease of reading. in case figures are used in the text, it should be indicated where they should be placed approximately in the text. the figures themselves have to be supplied separately from the text in a common graphics format (e.g. tif, gif, png, jpg, wmf, cdr or eps formats are all acceptable). if bitmaps or scanned figures are used the author should ensure that they have a resolution of at least 300 dpi at the size they will be printed. the use of colour in figures is encouraged, as the Plaxis Bulletin is printed in full-colour. any correspondence regarding the Plaxis Bulletin can be sent by email to bulletin@plaxis.nl or by regular mail to:

Simulation of a volcano in Plaxis

Plaxis Practice

Structural reliability analysis of deep excavations

Plaxis Practice

Numerical simulation of a trial wall on expansive soil in Sudan Application of the ground anchor facility in Plaxis 3D Foundation

Plaxis Practice 14

Plaxis Practice 19

Plaxis Bulletin
c/o erwin Beernink Po Box 57 600 an delft the netherlands the Plaxis Bulletin has a total circulation of 1.000 copies and is distributed worldwide. Editorial Board: Wout Broere Ronald Brinkgreve Erwin Beernink arny lengkeek

Recent Activities 22 Activities 2007 24

coverphoto: Building Pit sixhaven, noord/Zuidlijn metro, amsterdam

Editorial

in the last year we have seen a continuing increase of Plaxis-related activities. The prospect for 2007 is even better; see the agenda at the end of this Bulletin. The increase in 2D and 3D geotechnical finite element calculations has led to some interesting innovative applications in this Bulletin.

the first application involves a study after the stability of the cumbre Vieja volcano at the island of la Palma. in contrast to what has been suggested in a world famous television documentary, the results of this study show that there is no danger for a big slide or resulting tsunami in the near future. talking about dangers, the second application shows how Plaxis can be used in structural reliability calculations using probabilistic methods. in this respect, failure is not primarily defined as collapse of the soil structure, but may also be defined in terms of structural forces or displacements obtained from the finite element calculations. the article shows that probabilistic analysis using Plaxis is quite feasible. the third application demonstrates the use of a new model for partially saturated soil. the application involves a combination of transient groundwater flow calculations using Plaxflow, and deformation analysis using Plaxis version 8. it is concluded that care must be taken with the use of suction in deformation or stability calculations. the fourth application is a validation example of the ground anchor facility in the new Plaxis 3d foundation program that will be released soon. the results show that it is an efficient way to model ground anchors under working load conditions. However, it is emphasized that the ground anchor facility should not be used to evaluate a pull-out force. When going towards failure, results become quite mesh dependent. all together, we think that the current Bulletin contains enough interesting information, which may also encourage you to submit your own contribution next time. We wish you a fruitful reading experience and look forward to receive more documented projects for the coming bulletins. the editors

New Developments

New Developments
Ronald Brinkgreve, Plaxis BV

the development of advanced but practical models to simulate soil behaviour has always played an important role in the Plaxis developments. over the years, advanced models have become available, while maintaining the Plaxis philosophy that such models must have clear and understandable parameters. subsequently, more and more users have made the step to learn about these advanced models, to select the corresponding model parameters and to apply them in practical finite element calculations. all together it has led to an improvement of the predictive capabilities of the finite element method in the geotechnical engineering practice. in fact, model development is an ongoing activity. the latest model that has been added to the family is the Hardening soil model with small-strain stiffness [1]. this addition is not only relevant for dynamic applications (wave propagation, hysteretic damping), but it also improves the prediction of settlements as a result of excavations. moreover, using small-strain stiffness makes finite element results less dependent on the precise position of the model boundaries, provided that a sufficiently large part of the geometry is taken into account in the finite element model []. all this is obtained for only two extra (compared to the standard Hsm) model parameters: the small-strain shear stiffness, G0, and the shear strain at which the secant shear stiffness has reduced to 70% of G0. the Hssmall model is available for all users that participate in the Plaxis renewable license programmes. in the remainder of this column i like to mention some other material model developments that are going on and that we consider to make available in the (near) future for those who are interested. first of all, in addition to the Hssmall model, we will be working on a real cyclic loading model. this model will include the accumulation of volumetric straining in multiple load cycles. in combination with undrained behaviour it will also lead to liquefaction type of behaviour, although real liquefaction would require a more complicated model with softening. moreover, within the network of universities and institutes where Plaxis collaborates with, work is being performed on unsaturated soil models, anisotropic creep models, anisotropic undrained strength models,

structured clay models, hypo-plastic models and other small-strain models. some of these have already been developed as user-defined soil models and are available on special request. for further details see the Plaxis web site (services > Udsm). Historically speaking, Plaxis has always been strong in the modelling of soft soils. nevertheless, since Plaxis is used nowadays all over the world under different geological conditions (see for example the la Palma application further in this Bulletin) there is an increasing demand for rock models. in this respect, the well-known generalized Hoek-Brown model has been recently implemented as a user-defined model. a particular feature of the Hoek-Brown model is the curved failure envelope with increasing confining pressure, in combination with a tensile strength for strong cohesive materials. this leads to difficulties to make the model compatible with typical Plaxis features like phi-c reduction, but this difficulty has been overcome, as demonstrated by Benz et.al. [3]. later this year, the Hoek-Brown model will be made operational as a standard model in Plaxis. to give users insight in the behaviour of new models we will integrate them in Plaxis courses on computational Geotechnics and in the new soil test facility. We are convinced that this will lead to a further improvement of the quality of geotechnical finite element calculations.

References
[1] Benz, t. (006). small-strain stiffness of soils and its numerical consequences. Ph.d. thesis. institut fr Geotechnik, Universitt stuttgart. [] Brinkgreve r.B.J., Bakker k.J., Bonnier P.G. (006). the relevance of small-strain stiffness in excavation and tunnelling projects. in: H.f. schweiger (ed.) numerical methods in Geotechnical engineering. taylor & francis. 133-139. [3] Benz t, kauther r., schwab r (006). simulation of a large excavation using a Hoek-Brown model. in: H.f. schweiger (ed.) numerical methods in Geotechnical engineering. taylor & francis. 513-518. corrected reference on embedded beam element in previous new developments column (Bulletin 0): [1] sadek m., shahrour i. (00). a three-dimensional embedded beam element for reinforced geomaterials. int. J. num. anal. meth. Geomech. 8, 931-96.

figure 1 Hoek-Brown failure criterion

Plaxis Practice

Simulation of a volcano in Plaxis

Janneke van Berlo, M. sc. student, Delft University of Technology

Introduction
modelling of slope stability is a common practice in Plaxis. modelling of a volcanic edifice of 16 km wide and  km high however, required some pioneering in the familiar finite element package. for geological processes such as magma intrusion and water expansion, Plaxis offers no ready made features. nevertheless this article will show that with creative use of the program one can accomplish more than might be expected on first sight. the island of san miguel de la Palma is the most north-western island of the canary islands archipelago, situated about 00 km from the coast of central morocco. the south-western part of the island, which is formed by the cumbre Vieja volcano has been considered to be more or less unstable by various authors (ancochea et all, 199; carracedo et al, 1999; day et al, 1999). (figure 1) Ward and day (001) even forecast that an effective collapse of the island may cause a tsunami in the altantic ocean. this research emcompassed quantifying the likelyness that the supposed la Palma landslide will actually take place. the (boundary) conditions under which the West flank of the cumbre Vieja volcano could start sliding have been investigated. moreover the time lapse from the present day to the day such mass movement would occur was assessed. the purpose of this article is to inform the reader about the specific problems encountered during the modelling of a volcano and the applied solutions. at the same time the results of the research objectives will be discussed briefly.

The geometry of the mountain

in order to construct a full cross-section through the mountain, at least 16 km of modelling space was required. on the other hand, the drawing space is limited to 10 km. But with the origin in the centre, both positive and negative coordinates up to 10 km can be used. Because modelling was carried out in d, a least stable cross section through the edifice was chosen. figure  shows the layout of the cross section. the asymmetry of the cross section stands out: a significant part of the eastern flank has not been modelled. this is because the eastern flank contains a relatively weak layer of sediments that were deposited there after a previous giant collapse of the island about 560 thousand years ago. this layer is called Post collapse sequence or Post collapse sediment (Pcs) and is depicted in yellow in figure . it is to be expected that this layer governs the failure mechanism. earlier modelling in a fully symmetric cross section confirmed this prospect.

figure  the layout of the model

Geotechnical properties of the rocks

due to its volcanic character la Palma almost entirely consists of rocks. But the one major soil unit present at the island (the Pcs, indicated in yellow in figure ) indeed governs the stability situation. the rocks on the island are often characterized by a mixed character on scales too small for modelling. examples are found on the volcano flanks in the geotechnical unit cumbre Vieja lava & Breccia and in the riftzone rocks (figure ). the parameters representing these zones have been chosen to be averaged values of the rocks present there. modelling has been carried out with the use of two datasets. the first one representing an average or standard state of rock mass properties, the second one representing a worst case of rock mass properties. from these data appropriate parameters for the mohr-coulomb model were selected. table 1 depicts a summary of the worst case rock mass parameters.

figure 1 satellite view of la Palma with indication of modelled area 5

Plaxis Practice

Simulation of a volcano in Plaxis

Continuation

table 1. summary of worst case parameter data set Parameter Unit d w n e50 c tm em mn/m3 mn/m mPa mPa mPa mPa lava & Breccia 0.0177 0.0180 0.5 30 5.8 -0.07 7913 PCs Pyroclasts 0.016 0.017 0.35 15 5 0.01 -0.006 0.01 0.016 0.5 195 5 .1 -0.016 Dykes Volcaniclasts (submarine) 0.05 0.0133 0.06 0.0136 0.5 0.5 9867 37 6 9 3.9 -0.13 -0.039 13335 519

counter pressure is small, explosions occur. Plaxis cannot simulate the migration of water. instead the pressures are imposed on the model by means of insertion of manually defined pore pressures on top of the normal hydrostatic pore pressures. the increased pore pressures have been placed in a limited space in the subsurface. the material data sets in the pressurized areas have been temporarily replaced by material sets with a very low elastic modulus. thus pressures can be transmitted to surrounding rocks through occurring deformations. Hence, a worst case approach has been adapted (as if it were that the water is blocked in vertical direction e.g. by a sill). two of these limited areas have been investigated; one simulating a heat source above sea level and another simulating a heat source below sea level. a range of these pressures have been modelled in Plaxis until failure of the model occurred. Dyke intrusion a strong dyke intrusion could fill a fissure from the sea bottom to about 100 m below the crest of the riftzone. in lateral sense, it is known that during an eruprion of the cumbre Vieja volcano in 199, a fissure of at least 800 m, but more likely 000m existed (day et al, 1999). When a dyke intrudes into the riftzone, two mechanisms contribute to a weakening of the volcanic edifice. firstly the weight of the magma exerts a magmastatic pressure on its surroundings (figure 3). secondly, the magma cannot resist shear stress and will therefore immediately be the weakest material unit in the model, thus introducing a potential zone of failure.

tm and em are parameters according to the Hoek-Brown formulation tm = tensile strength em = deformation modulus

Modelling of geological and volcanological processes

the program has been made fit to address volcano growth, varying ground water levels, extreme pore pressure or explosions and dike-shaped magma intrusions. the next paragraphs will briefly describe the way these processes and structures have been incorporated. Volcano Growth the historical growth of the cumbre Vieja volcano has been simulated in stages. in each stage, about 100m of magmatic rocks are put on top of the edifice. the growth has been simulated this way, because the influence of the loading path on the final stress distribution in the edifice was not known. thus the volcano has been slowly built up, up to the height that it currently has. from this point on the model was extended with possible future processes and future growth. the height of the water table is updated along with every stage of growth. Pore pressures and explosions due to heating of pore water around intrusion in the riftzone a volcanic dyke is a tabular intrusion of magma that cuts across the bedding of the country rock. an intruding dyke can heat up surrounding water which is trapped between vertical impermeable dykes. subsequently the water may expand and when experiencing little counter pressure, cause explosions. although it is plausible that some of the produced forces are deviated in horizontal direction, experience shows that great amounts of heated pore water escape in vertical direction through the riftzone. after all, the vertically zoned pyroclastic rocks in the riftzone will expose less resistance to pressure than the dykes and lavas that are governing the horizontal direction. in reality pressurized pore water will move, escape vertically and not be bounded inside a specific area. When expanding and migrating water cannot dissipate and when

figure 3 illustration of the stress difference in a fluid and in a rock mass in a modelled representation of an intrusion the dyke would ideally be introduced as a fluid cluster instead of a soil cluster. this fluid cluster would contain the proper features to both simulate the equi-directional pressure forces of the magma fluid and the specific weight of the magma. However the only fluid available in the Plaxis software is water, so a real magma material cannot be introduced in the program. therefore the area of the dyke has been assigned an infill of water only. at the same time, a horizontal prescribed load of 0.017 mn/m/m has been imposed on the sides of the dyke in order to make up for the density difference between water and magma (magma is approximately 0.07 mn/m3. check: Pwater + magmastatic = magma; 0.010 + 0.017 = 0.07 mPa). see figure .

Plaxis Practice

figure . layout of the prescribed load system that simulates a magmastatic dyke pressure Future volcano growth apart from eruption mechanisms that may destabilize the western flank of the volcano any further, a process of different nature would be a more steady and certain destabilizer. this mechanism is further accumulation of lavas at the top part of the volcano. former landslides at la Palma have been estimated to occur at greater heights and slopes than the cumbre Vieja has currently reached. heights of 000-3000 m, with flanks consistently exceeding 0 and frequently even 30-35. for comparison: the cumbre Vieja volcano is now 1900 m high at its peak, but on average 1700 m. the dips of its slopes vary from 16 to 0. the possible future growth has simply been added in the model by a continuation of lava streams on top of the topography of the current cumbre Vieja volcano.

figure 5. total displacements due to historical growth only. the plane of weakness is formed by a sequence of Post collapse sediments. the pore water heating mechanism is an effective agent to disrupt the volcano. nevertheless it does not cause the landslide as feared by many. instead, as may be expected, this mechanism causes a collapse of the top of the volcano that is blown upward, in the same way as often observed during volcanic eruptions that involve water. figure 6 shows how mohr-coulomb and tensions cut-off points are concentrated in the riftzone. Under the extreme pressures that have been modelled here, the flank also develops an almost interconnected chain of mohr-coulomb points. yet, the preferential path of rupture develops in the central zone. the magmastatic pressure of an intruding dyke can have a significant influence on the factor of safety (fs) of the potential landslide body, with a reduction of the fs up to 0..

Results
in a situation where gravity only acts on the volcano body in its current configuration, the factor of safety is 1.70 under a standard parameter set and decreases to 1. under a worst case parameter set. similar results were also obtained earlier using a conventional limit equilibrium method. Hence under its own weight the edifice is not prone to collapse. the failure mechanism along the weak sediments under the western volcano flank, however, is already clearly visible (figure 5). even in this situation of relative stability, about 9 m of displacement has taken place along the volcano crest. a mayor fissure which formed in 199 at the crest of the volcano, may be the result of such accomodative displacement. formerly scientists have postulated that this 199 fissure was an indication of instability. from the results of this work however, one may conclude differently. the presence of the fissures has been confirmed by the calculations, but they are more likely the result of deformation only than of a collapse situation. future growth of the cumbre Vieja is the most effective agent to trigger the potential landslide. on average, the factor of safety is decreased with 0.1 with every 00 m of growth. according to this model, due to growth only it would take in the order of magnitude of tens of thousands of years to trigger a massive flank collapse.

Conclusion on modelling and research goals

Plaxis has proven to be suitable to simulate a volcano of significant size and complex rock structure. in particular, two volcanic processes have been simulated: thermal pore pressure development due to heat radiation of an intruding magma body and magmastatic pressure of a dyke. the former can be simulated by a combination of the manual pore pressure feature working on a fully elastic infill material. the density of the latter has been simulated by a prescribed load acting on a body of water. an eruption during the next several human generations is not expected to cause a landslide hazard at the cumbre Vieja volcano. the eruption forces cannot generate enough momentum to trigger failure in a 3d situation. However, after further volcano growth in the far future, when significant extra gravity forces act on the edifice, the eruption forces may be able to trigger a landslide. this will, however, take place in a time span of not less than 10.000 years.

Plaxis Practice

Simulation of a volcano in Plaxis

Continuation

figure 6 failure points in the riftzone as a result of thermal pore pressures. the thermal pore pressures form due to heat radiation of deep seated magma intrusions.

References
ancochea e et all. (199) constructive and destructive episodes in the building of a young oceanic island, la Palma, canary islands, and genesis of the caldera de taburiente, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal research, 60, 3-6 carracedo Jc et all. (1999) later stages of volcanic evolution of la Palma, canary islands: rift evolution, giant landslides, and the genesis of the caldera de taburiente, Geological society of america Bulletin, 111 (no. 5), 755-768 day sJ et all. (1999) recent structural evolution of the cumbre Vieja volcano, la Palma, canary islands: volcanic rift zone reconfiguration as a precursor to volcano flank instability?, Journal of volcanology and geothermal research, 9 (issues 1-), 135-167 masson dG et al (00) slope failures on the flanks of the western canary islands, earth-scx. reviews, 57, 1-35 Ward sn, day s (001) cumbre Vieja Volcano -- Potential collapse and tsunami at la Palma, canary islands, Geophysical research letters, 8 (17), 3397-300 White Jdl; schmincke HU (1999) Phreatomagmatic eruptive and depositional processes during the 199 eruption on la Palma (canary islands), Journal of volcanology and geothermal research, 9, 83-30

Plaxis Practice

Structural reliability analysis of deep excavations

Timo schweckendiek, TU Delft, Wim Courage, TNO Built Environment and Geosciences

Introduction
the finite element method is nowadays widely used in structural design, both for the servicebility limit state (sls) and also for the Ultimate limit state (Uls). especially the Uls design rules are based on the idea of ensuring sufficient structural reliability, which is usually expressed in a maximum admissible failure probability. this is commonly achieved by prescribing design rules and establishing partial safety factors. these load and resistance factors are calibrated for a wide range of typical cases with typical dimensions. for more extraordinary cases it could be that the application of these concepts leads to extremely conservative or possibly also to unconservative designs. the presented approach enables us to use the optimization potential for these case. furthermore, the determination of failure probabilities is a substantial and indispensable element in modern risk-based design strategies (see fig. 1).

for most types of structures to apply partial safety factors to the load and resistance variables (lrfd: load and resistance factor design). this design approach is meant and calibrated to ensure a certain minimum reliability level, i.e. that the probability of structural failure is sufficiently low.

figure . Partial safety factors vs. fully Probabilistic figure 1. risk-based design concepts in this article we present a way of determining the structural reliability respectively the failure probability by means of probabilisitic calculations directly. to this end Plaxis is coupled with the generic probabilistic toolbox ProBox, developed by tno Built environment and Geosciences. ProBox enables us to carry out a reliability analysis using Plaxis in a fully automatized manner. We will also show that, in contrast to common prejudices, probabilistic analysis does not necessarily require thousands or millions of calculations as e.g. the monte carlo method, if we use more advanced and more efficient reliability techniques. an essential task in structural reliability analysis is thus the determination of failure probabilities. to this end the first thing to do is the definition of failure. this failure definition does not necessarily have to mean structural collapse, but an unwanted event or state of the structure. in general, failure is defined as the load exceeding the strength. an example for an excavation with a sheet pile retaining wall would be the that the bending moment exceeds the elastic or plastic moment of the sheet pile, respectively that the stresses in the pile exceed the yield strength or the ultimate strength of the steel. for the analysis we have to define a limit state function (Z). this function is the mathematical description of our failure definition. it implies all relevant load and resistance variables. a negative Z-value (Z<0) corresponds to failure, whereas a positive value (Z>0) to the desired state. a simple example for a limit state function is Z=R-s where r is the structural resistance and s is the load. consequently, when the load 9

Structural Reliability
the task of the engineer in structural design is to ensure that the resistance (r) of the structure is larger than the load (s) it is exhibited to. Both quantities usually imply several variables, e.g. soil parameters, geometrical dimensions or forces. the magnitude of most of these quantities is uncertain. to ensure the safety of a structure it is common nowadays

Plaxis Practice

Structural reliability analysis of deep excavations

Continuation

exceeds the strength (s>r -> Z<0) we obtain failure. to obtain the failure probability we have to use furthermore the statistical information of the variables. in essence, we integrate the probability density over the failure domain: the reliability is the converse of the probability of failure. it is often expressed in terms

for the model input statistics several distribution types can be used, like e.g. normal, lognormal or extreme value distributions. the correlations among the variables can be accounted for in form of a correlation matrix. the strength of ProBox is the possibility of using external models for reliability analysis. for example the influence of corrosion on a sheet pile structure can be analyzed by using a corrosion model for the strength reduction part, whilst the load on the wall would be determined by Plaxis. ProBox has already been used in combination with: - fem-codes (diana, PlaXis, catpro) - matlab - excel - other stand-alone applications (sobek, ozone, etc.) - user-defined dlls (fortran, c, c++, Java) the most relevant results of an analysis with ProBox are the probability of failure Pf , the reliability coefficient and the influence coefficients expressing the influence of each stochastic variable on the analyzed limit state b. the results can also be visualized in form of scatter plots, histograms or line plots.

of the reliability index: where -1 is the inverse cumulative normal distribution. for low values of b one can

approximate the failure probability by Pf = 10b.

Functionality of Probox
the program ProBox allows us to carry out this complex operation of determining the failure probability with advanced and efficient methods of high accuracy (level ii and level iii), amongst which: - form / sorm - crude monte carlo - directional sampling / dars - increased Variance sampling - numerical integration

Coupling Probox - Plaxis

the reliability analysis is fully controlled by ProBox. Plaxis is used to evaluate the limit state function for a parameter combination which is determined by the reliability algorithm. in other words, the Plaxis analysis allows us to decide wether a certain parameter combination would lead to structural failure or not.

figure 3. screenshot Probox

figure . coupling scheme ProBox-Plaxis

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Plaxis Practice

the scheme in figure  illustrates how the coupling between ProBox and Plaxis works. in first instance one has to build the structural model in Plaxis. in ProBox you assign statistical properties to material properties like e.g. soil parameters or load characteristics that reflect their uncertainty. the reliability algorithm defines for each limit state function evaluation the parameter combination that has to be evaluated with the Plaxis model. the according Plaxis input files are manipulated, before the calculation is started. after the fem-analysis ProBox reads the relevent results from the output files. this procedure is repeated until the convergence or stop criteria of the chosen reliability method are reached.

the soil properties and the distributions of the soil parameters are listed in table 1. Based on the problem geometry and these soil parameters a deterministic design was made, based on the dutch technical recommendations for sheet pile structures (cUr 166). the obtained structural dimensions are also indicated in figure 5. the choice of distribution functions in table 1 is partially based on avoiding illposed problems. a lognormal distribution cannot assume values smaller than 0 and a Beta distribution has a lower and an upper limit and is therefore well suited for parameters such as the Poisson ratio. in this example we want to determine the probability of failure of the sheet pile itself. the simplest way to do so would be to determine the probability that the design moment md is exceeded. the according limit state function would be: Z = Md - M = Wel * fy - M where Wel is the elastic section modulus, fy is the yield strength and m is the bending moment calculated in Plaxis. one could also use a plastic moment, when plastic hinges are allowed. this expression can be refined by accounting for the axial forces in the wall as well. in this case we can determine the probability that the yield strength fy is exceeded using the limit state function: Z = fy - = fy - (M/Wel + F/a) where the stress is composed of the bending moment m, the section modulus Wel ,

Example
the following example of a sheet pile wall with one anchor layer in soft soil will illustrate the presented ideas.

figure 5. example Geometry

1,328 [kPa] 733.2 [kPa] 0.396 [-] 0.335 [-] 18.64 [kN/m] 13.58 [kN/m] 20.48 [deg] 23.78 [deg] 33.90 [deg] 13.69 [kPa] 7.36 [kPa] 0.474 [-] 0.608 [-]

table 1. soil Parameter distributions

table . results reliability analysis sheet Pile failure

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Structural reliability analysis of deep excavations

Continuation

the axial force f and the cross sectional area a. this expression has the additional advantage that e.g the influence of corrosion can be accounted for via changes in the geometrical properties of the sheet pile Wel and a easily. the results of a reliability analysis, in which the relevant soil properties were treated as stochastic quantities, are listed in table . the analysis was carried out with a form algorithm. 99 evaluations of the limit state function were carried out, i.e. the Plaxis model was evaluated 99 times. for this relatively simple model this resulted in a calculation time of only approximately 30 minutes. the results were furthermore checked against exact level three calculations, which gave similar results. these were carried out with directional sampling and required 655 model evaluations. considering the low failure probability a crude monte carlo simulation would not be feasible within reasonable time, since the required number of Plaxis calculations would be in the order of 10+7. the target reliability index of class ii structure designed with the cUr 166 recommendations is b = 3.. Using this approach we calculate a higher reliability (b =.). the structural design is thus conservative for this limit state. there might be room for optimization. the influence coefficients in table  and figure 6 give us information about the importance of the parameters involved. there are two contributions in this influence measure, the sensitivity of the model to a certain variable and the amount of uncertainty in the same parameter. a positive value of indicates a positive influence on the limit state (and the reliability index), whereas a negative value indicates a negative influence. the design point is the most likely combination of parameters leading to failure (highest probability density). for this specific example the stiffness parameters of the clay layer apparently dominate the load on the wall. the influence factors from figure 6 give information about the contribution of the variables to the total uncertainty. considering the definition of the influence factor that means that

e.g. decreasing the uncertainty in these stiffness properties by additional soil investigation could increase the reliability considerably. figures 7 and 8 show the principal effective stresses in the design point. the design point is the parameter combination with highest probability density that leads to failure. especially from figure 8 can be concluded that the shear strength in the soil behind the wall is mobilized to a very low degree. the problem is thus still fully elastic (the calculations were carried out with the mohr-coulomb model.). that explains why the strength parameters of the soil play a minor role for this limit state. this was just an example of results of a reliability analysis and possible conclusions for the optimization of the problem. the outcomes of such an analysis contain a lot of useful information that can be used either for design refinements or in risk-based design approaches.

figure 6. influence factors 

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Plaxis Practice

Conclusions
fully probabilistic reliability analysis can be carried out with the presented framework with reasonable modeling and computational effort. this type of analysis allows us to calculate the reliability of a structure directly. this information can be used for optimization purposes, in risk-based design concepts and for the calibration of partial safety factors in design codes. - the influence coefficients as result of the analysis provide useful information for optimization purposes and also for the physical understanding of the model behavior close to failure.

Acknowlegdements
We want to thank Plaxis bv, especially dr. Paul Bonnier, for their support during this research.

References
Brinkgreve, Broere, Waterman, Plaxis 8. manual, 006. figure 7. Principal effective stresses (design Point sheet Pile failure) ditlevsen, o.d., stuctural reliability methods, John Wiley & sons, chichester, Uk, 1996, edition 1. ProBox, a Generic Probabilistic toolbox, more information and trial-version availbale on: www.tno.nl/probox schweckendiek, t., structural reliability applied to deep excavations, msc-thesis, tU delft, the netherlands, 006. (www.citg.tudelft.nl) Waarts, P.H., structural reliability Using finite element methods, Phd thesis, tU delft, the netherlands, 000.

figure 8. relative shear (design Point sheet Pile failure)

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Plaxis Practice

Numerical simulation of a trial wall on expansive soil in Sudan

ayman abed, stuttgart University

Introduction
the expansive soil shows obvious volumetric changes under changing moisture conditions. these volumetric deformations usually result in differential movements of shallow foundations resting on it. consequently, structural damages could happen if no special measures would have been taken during the design process. this article illustrates the possibility to predict such movements using PlaXis provided that a suitable constitutive model for unsaturated soil behaviour is used.

Trial Wall on Expansive Soil

nine trial walls were built on swelling soil in Barakat site in sudan. the area is known for its highly expansive soil. the test were carried out in order to investigate the effect of soil replacement on the walls vertical movement [saeed 00]. the walls are made of brick (1 1/ brick) with a length of 1. m and a height of 1.9 m above the ground level. the foundation depth is 0.6 m. a schematic representation of the walls with their dimensions is given in figure 1. the expansive soil underneath the walls was replaced with different materials namely a1, a, a3, B1, B, B3, c1, c and c3 where: a1: plain concrete, a: reinforced concrete with 0 % voids, a3: Big stones, B1: 5 cm of cohesive nonexpansive soil (cns), B: 50 cm of cns, B3: 75 cm of cns, c1: natural soil, c: natural soil with 6 % lime, c3: sand. the soil was then exposed to two successive wetting-drying cycles for a period of about 18 months. detailed data about the vertical displacements of the trial walls is reported by [saeed 00], figure  presents only the displacements of the wall c1 with no replacement as the purpose of this study is to simulate the behaviour of the expansive soil itself. on investigating the measurements one finds that the test has four stages. the first one is a wetting phase of about 70 days resulting in a total heave of about 6.0 cm. the wetting phase was followed by a drying phase of 90 days resulting in .5 cm of shrinkage. the second wetting stage lasted 17 days and resulted in .5 cm of heave, which indicates an elastic behaviour by recovering the settlement in the previous drying phase in almost similar time. the final phase was relatively short of about 50 days and resulted in 0.5 cm of shrinkage.

figure 1. Geometrical details of the walls

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where f: soil friction angle c: effective cohesion ksat: saturated permeability b: humid unit weight p: preconsolidation pressure

Material Model for Soil

Barcelona Basic model [alonso & Gens 1990] is used as a constitutive model in this work. the model adopts the idea of two independent stress measures namely, the net stress * and the suction s. the net stress is defined as the difference between the total stress and the pore air pressure ua whereas suction is the difference between pore air pressure ua and pore water pressure uw. in what follows the air pressure is assumed to be atmospheric everywhere in the soil which means that the net stress in this special case is simply the total stress and the suction is equal to -uw. the model is an extension of the modified cam clay model by adding the effect of suction on soil strength and stiffness. at full saturation, when suction = 0, the model coincides with the modified cam clay model. on drying the soil (increasing the suction), a capillary cohesion develops and consequently the yield ellipse grows into the tension region with a rate equal to the model parameter a as it shown in figure .a. the soil preconsolidation pressure pp increases as well. it can be related to the preconsolidation pressure at full saturation ppo through the following formula ppo lo - k pp = pc . ( pc ) l - k where pc is a reference pressure and l = l - (l - lo).e -b.s () (1)

figure . measured displacements of the wall c1 as provided by [saeed 00]

Soil Properties
the soil is classified as a clayey silt with a liquid limit ll = 68% and a plastic index Pi = 36%. the 1-d compression results in figure 3 shows that the soil is overconsolidated and it has a modified compression index l* = cc / .3 = 0.098 and a modified swelling index k* cs / .3 = 0.03. the high k value is typical for an expansive soil. other available soil properties are listed in table 1.

figure 3. one dimensional compression results table 1. other soil properties f 30o c 0.0 p 105 kPa ksat 0.0 m/day b 17.6 kn/m3

(a) figure . the yield surface of Barcelona Basic model

(b)

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Numerical simulation of a trial wall on expansive soil in Sudan

Continuation

l is the suction dependent compression index. Hence, for full saturation we have s = 0, l = lo and pp = ppo. the larger the suction, the smaller the compression index l. in the limit for s = the above expression yields l = l. the constant b controls the rate of decrease of the compression index with suction. When the deviatoric stress q = 0, the yield surface of Barcelona Basic model degenerates to the so-called loading-collapse curve as it clear in figure .a where p* and q are the stress invariants being defined as p* = 1 (*1 + * + *3) -ua ; 3 q= 1  (*1 - *) + (* - *3) + (*3 - *1) (3)

relationships. the first one is known as the soil Water characteristic curve while the second is the relative permeability function. the term relative permeability stands for the ratio between soil permeability k at a certain suction level and ksat. Both curves are shown in figure 6.

for the elastic behaviour, the model assumes that the soil has different stiffness parameters for changes of net stress and changes of suction. for example starting from stress state a in figure .b the soil shows different stiffness depending on whether it is exposed to net stress change or suction change. in the latter case the soil swelling index with respect to suction ks controls the soil response while the normal swelling index k dominates the other case. this model has been implemented into PlaXis finite element code as a user defined model by [aBed & Vermeer 006] where the full mathematical description of the model is also presented. the swelling index with respect to suction ks is the most important parameter in the trial wall case as suction is the only variable during the test. it is assumed that the reader is aware of the fact that the change of moisture content and the change of suction are synonym.

(a)

Finite Element Calculations

the calculations involve transient unsaturated flow as well as deformation analyses. as the calculations are done in an uncoupled way, the unsaturated ground water flow analyses are done first and the resulted suction fields are used for later deformation calculations. the PlaXfloW finite element code [BrinkGreVe et al. 003] is used to simulate the unsaturated groundwater flow and to determine the suction variation with time. the deformation analyses are done using the Barcelona Basic model as implemented in the PlaXis finite element code.

Geometry, Boundary and Initial Conditions

figure 5.a shows the boundary conditions, the initial conditions and the finite element mesh being used. the ground water calculation is found to be decisive for choosing the depth of the mesh. no local deformations are expected to take place around the wall footing, for that reason no further mesh refinement is needed in that region. the ground water table lies at a depth of 30 m below the ground level. the initial pore water pressure is assumed to be hydrostatic, with tension above the phreatic line. according to [saeed 00], the soil was always soaked with water during wetting phase, which suggests an infiltration rate equal to the saturated soil permeability ksat. a high evaporation rate of 10 mm/day is applied during the drying phase to account for the observed severe shrinkage. the applied surface discharge with time is illustrated in figure 5.b. PlaXfloW requires information about the suction-degree of saturation and the suction-relative permeability (b) figure 5. Geometry, boundary and initial conditions

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figure 6. soil Water characteristic curve and relative permeability function

PLAXFLOW output
figure 7 illustrates the variation of suction and degree of saturation with time underneath the wall as calculated by PlaXfloW. the suction drops from 300 kPa to about 30 kPa at the end of the first wetting phase. then it increases again to 0 kPa at the end of the first drying phase. then behaviour is repeated in the next wetting-drying cycle. it is also interesting to see how the degree of saturation is increasing with the decrease of suction and vice versa. figure 8 presents the calculated suction profiles at the end of the first wetting phase as well as at the end of the first drying phase. they resembles typical suction distributions under infiltration and evaporation boundary conditions

figure 8. suction profile at different time steps

Deformation analyses
suction values resulted from ground water flow calculations are transferred to PlaXis for deformation calculations. the material properties in table  are used for the Barcelona Basic model. no information is provided about the soil swelling index with respect to suction ks, for that reason it is the calibration parameter in these calculations. its value is varied between 0.005 to 0.03 which covers the most common values for this index as mentioned in literature [fredlUnd & raHardJo 1993]. a value of ks = 0.015 is found to give the best fit to the field measurements. indeed this value is satisfactory in the sense that it also reflects the expansive nature of the soil being studied. on using the material properties as listed in table  the calculated deformations are in good agreement with measured data as shown in figure 9. the deviation at the end of the first drying phase suggests that one should use a higher swelling index during shrinkage. as the model uses the same index for both swelling and shrinking it would be better for further improvement to use the idea of yielding on the shrinkage path as it proposed also by the Barcelona Basic model [alonso & Gens 1990] where after a certain suction level the soil tends to yield with lower stiffness and giving more shrinkage. table . Barcelona Basic model parameters strength parameters f c a 30o 0.0 0.5 stiffness parameters lo k n pco 0.098 0.03 0. 97 kPa stiffness parameters with respect to suction ks 0.015 l 0.07 b 0.013 kPa-1 pc 50 kPa

300. 0 250. 0 200. 0 150. 0 100. 0 50. 0 0.0 0 100 200 300

degree of saturation suction

70 60

Suction [kPa]

considered point

50 40 30 20 10 0 400 500 600

Time [days]

figure 7. suction and degree of saturation underneath the wall

Degree of saturation Sr %

where n: soil Poissons ratio for unloading-reloading

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Numerical simulation of a trial wall on expansive soil in Sudan

Continuation

References
[aBed & Vermeer 006] a. a. aBed, P. a. Vermeer: foundation analyses with unsaturated soil model for different suction profiles: in proc. sixth european conference on numerical methods in Geotechnical engineering, Graz, austria. [alonso & Gens 1990] e. e. alonso, a. Gens, and a. Josa: a constitutive model for partially saturated soils: Gotechnique (0), 1990 [BrinkGreVe et al. 003] PlaXfloW User manual: Balkema, rotterdam, 003 [fredlUnd & raHardJo 1993] soil mechanics for Unsaturated soils: John Wiley & sons, 1993 [saeed 00] i. m. a. saeed: evaluation of improvement techniques for strip foundation on expansive clay soils in Gezira: master thesis: University of khartoum: sudan, 00 [Vermeer & BrinkGreVe 1998] PlaXis finite element code for soil and rock analysis: Balkema, rotterdam, 1998

figure 9. calculated versus measured data

Conclusions
the PlaXfloW-PlaXis interaction offers a nice tool to simulate the mechanical behaviour of unsaturated soil. in this study PlaXfloW is used to solve suction variation in time whereas the Barcelona Basic model as implemented in PlaXis is used to calculate the deformations. it shows clearly how much this procedure is efficient. However, one should always emphasize on the comprehensive understanding of the constitutive model being used and its limitations. the use of suction in deformation or stability calculation is always critical and need special model to handle it. Using it with the wrong model or without full awareness leads in most cases to a non-conservative estimation.

figure 10. deformed mesh at the end of calculations

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Application of the ground anchor facility in Plaxis 3D Foundation

Franz Tschuchnigg, Helmut schweiger, Graz University of Technology

Introduction
the ground anchor in Plaxis 3d foundation consists of two different parts. the first part represents the free anchor length and the second part the grout body. the free length is modelled as a node-to-node anchor, which represents the connection between the grout body and e.g. a diaphragm wall, and the grout body consists of embedded beam elements, which are line elements with a special interface to model the grout-soil interaction. for the definition of the ground anchor eight input values are required (fig. 1).

Deep excavation with prestressed ground anchors

in order to demonstrate the application of the ground anchors in Plaxis 3d foundation, some results from a practical example, namely a deep excavation in Berlin sand, are presented. this example was chosen for testing the ground anchor facility under working load conditions because a d reference solution was available. the model dimensions and material sets for the soil layers have been taken from the d reference solution (fig. ).

figure 1: system layout and input values for a ground anchor the soil-interaction is defined with the two separate values for skin resistance along the grout body. thus it is possible to define a constant, linear or trapezoidal distribution of skin resistance. the maximum interaction force between the soil and the grout body is directly applied in the interface of the embedded beam. it is pointed out that this represents the skin resistance at failure (i.e. when the pull out force is reached) and that the skin traction distribution below full mobilisation is influenced by the specified limiting distribution. in reality mobilisation will start at the top of the grout body and only close to the pull out force (failure) the skin traction at the bottom should be mobilised. in the embedded pile the mobilisation follows the predefined shape from the beginning (also at the bottom). However, tests have shown that this does not have a noticeable influence on the global behaviour of an anchored structure under working load conditions. another important point is, that for forces close to the theoretical pull out force numerical failure may occur due to plasticity in the soil adjacent to the grout body. although this is of course possible in reality, in the model it may be artificial and caused by the fact that the grout body is a line element. to overcome this problem in ultimate limit state conditions it is necessary to work with an enlarged diameter of the grout body. this virtual diameter of the grout body is defined as follows: Dvirtual = f * Dreal in this equation f is the factor for the enlargement, and a value of f in the range of   is suggested. this does not affect the pull out force (this is an input due the input of the limiting skin resistance and the length of the grout body) and has minor effect on the behaviour under working load conditions. it follows, and the user must be aware of this, that when using this option in Plaxis 3d foundation the maximum pull out force is an inPUt and cannot be oBtained from the analysis.

figure : Geometry and subsoil conditions the diaphragm wall has been modelled as a continuum element (fig. 3), with linear elastic material behaviour and a stiffness eref=3.0*e7 kn/m. the hydraulic cut off does not act as a structural element, the properties are the same as for the soil (sand 0 0m).

figure 3: 3d view of the model (09 elements) 19

Plaxis Practice

Application of the ground anchor facility in Plaxis 3D Foundation

Continuation

to obtain the current porewater distribution inside the excavation the porewater pressure was defined after each groundwater lowering (with user defined pore pressure distribution). the ground anchors have different spacing and prestress forces in the different layers and therefore the anchor rods have different properties. the properties of the grout body are the same in all rows (table 1).

in calculation 5 the stiffness of the grout body has been changed according to the ratio of the real diameter (0.15m) to the fictitious enlarged diameter (0.15*f=0.5m).

Results
it follows from figure  that neither the variation of the predefined limiting skin resistance of the grout body nor the f-factor for the enlargement of the grout diameter have a significant influence on the axial forces predicted under working load conditions. However the distribution of the mobilised skin traction along the grout body is not what one would expect in reality (fig. 5). if the mohr coulomb model is employed the results are slightly different (fig 6).

table 1: Ground anchor properties aim of the test was to see if the embedded pile model (employed for the grout body) works well in working load conditions and therefore the skin resistance in the grout body has been defined about two times the expected axial load in the node-to-node anchor. in the different calculations the material model, the shape of the limiting skin resistance and the enlargement of the grout body have been varied (table ). in the following tables the soil properties for the mc and the Hs-model are summarized.

figure : axial forces in the first anchor row (calculation 1, , 3, , 5)

table . soil parameters for the Hs-model figure 5: mobilised skin friction and axial force first anchor row (after excavation , calculation 1) With respect to the horizontal displacements there is a trend that wall deflection with a linear predefined shape of the skin friction is slightly higher than the one with constant skin traction distribution. it is also notable that by increasing the f-factors for the virtual grout body diameter displacements in horizontal direction become smaller. the differences are in the order of 10%. With the mc-model the highest deformations in horizontal direction are located around the grout body (fig. 7), whereas with the Hs-model this is not the case. this effect also occurs with the assignment of a high f-factor. the settlements behind the diaphragm wall are in the range of 11mm (almost the same for the different variations) with the Hs model, but with the mc model there is a heave of more than 1mm, an effect which is well known.

table 3. soil parameters for the mc-model

table . Variations in the different calculations

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figure 6: axial forces in the first anchor row calculation  vs calculation 6

figure 8: axial forces calculation  vs. d reference solution figure 9: Vertical displacements behind the diaphragm wall comparison reference solution with calculation 

Conclusions
figure 7: Horizontal displacements left calculation  (Hs-model), right calculation 6 (mc-model) a deep excavation supported by a diaphragm wall and three rows of anchors has been analysed utilizing Plaxis 3d foundation with the ground anchor option. the results from the 3d calculation with the Hs-model compare well to the d reference solution (both with respect to anchor forces and displacements) and as a consequence from the parametric study it can be concluded that it is not necessary to artificially increase the diameter of the grout body for working load conditions. concerning the distribution of the skin friction along the grout body, it is obvious that the mobilisation is not realistic. the reason is, that also at working load conditions the distribution of the skin friction is strongly influenced by the distribution in the failure state, which is an input. due to the fact that the limiting skin friction is an input the grout body length has no or minor influence on the result and therefore the length cannot be determined from the analysis. compared to the Hs-model the mc-model predicts significantly larger deformations around the grout body. the virtual enlargement of the grout body diameter (f-factor) does not change the results significantly for working load conditions. However for ultimate limit state calculations the f-factor becomes important, because in these calculations a premature failure (i.e. a failure below the theoretical pull out force) may occur when f=1.0. to overcome this problem it is essential to work with a virtual grout body enlargement. it follows from this study that the ground anchor concept in Plaxis 3d foundation is efficient for working load conditions, but for ultimate limit state analysis assumptions such as the f-factor, mesh coarseness and stiffness parameters of the soil (adjacent to the grout body) may have a significant influence on the result. it is emphasized again the maximum pull out force is an inPUt to the analysis and not a resUlt. obtained from the d solution (both maximum value and distribution).

Comparison of 3d results with 2d reference solution

in figure 8 axial forces in the first anchor row from calculation  (Hs-model and f-factor=1) are compared with the axial forces from the d reference solution. in Plaxis V8 the grout body of a ground anchor is modelled with geogrid elements. these elements have an axial stiffness but no bending stiffness. the axial forces from Plaxis V8 are in the dimension [kn/m] and to compare these results with the 3d analysis it is necessary to divide the axial forces from Plaxis 3d foundation by the anchor spacing of the different rows. one can see that the axial forces from the 3d calculations are in a very good agreement to the reference solution. the deviation of the forces in the node-to-node anchor between both calculations is less than %. also the vertical displacements behind the diaphragm wall from the 3d calculation (fig.9) are very similar to the ones

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Recent Activities

Recent Activities

Product updates
recently we introduced a new Plaxis introductory cd. Besides the Plaxis V8 introductory this cd includes: - 3dfoundation introductory - 3dtunnel introductory - Japanese Plaxis V8 introductory - chinese Plaxis V8 introductory - Updated and new animations if you are interested to receive this new introductory you can fill in the request form at the service page of www.plaxis.com

- richard de Jager, modelling of static liquefaction, delft University of technology/ Boskalis - ronald Brinkgreve, modelling in d or 3d?, Plaxis bv - abjan Jacobse, settlements of high-rise buildings in den Haag, icPluse - chris dykstra, the isotachen model from a practical perspective, Boskalis - daan Vink, the rijksmuseum in amsterdam, crUX - dirk luger, modelling of pre-tensioned friction piles, Geodelft - cor Zwanenburg, experimental testing from up-close, Geodelft the topics dealt with in the symposium were very diverse and after each presentation a stimulating discussion resulted. a more detailed perspective on the topics will follow since several authors will present their work and/or views in an article in this and future bulletins.

Plaxis Staff
We are pleased to announce that we extended our staff with Pranesh chaterjee and luc Bijsterbosch. Pranesh has a master degree in Geotechnical engineering from Bengal engineering college, Howrah and Ph. d. in seismic soil-structure interaction analysis from Jadavpur University, kolkatta both from india. furthermore he worked as a post doctoral at the k.U. leuven (Belgium) on tunnel-soil interaction analysis and worked in industry in the U.k. and india. His main responsibility at Plaxis developments will be 3d dynamics and soil-structure interaction analysis. luc graduated at the tU delft with a hydraulics background, looking at the influence of sea-level rise on tidal inlets. Besides his study civil engineering, he also followed several didactical courses. His work will consist of quality control, support and marketing activities. He will start working on new tutorials and a 3d example book related to the release of 3d foundation V. additional to contracting this promising staff Plaxis bv will continuously strengthen its team and has currently a key-position available for a senior software development engineer.

Plaxis in Russia
related to the rapid growth of Plaxis users in russia and as a spin-off from the discussions during the 1st russian Users meeting last year we will soon introduce the russian Plaxis website (www.plaxis.ru) on this website you will have access to all relevant Plaxis information in russian language and also fully described papers of presentations

User days and seminars

the dutch Plaxis Users association or Plaxis Gebruikersvereniging (PGV) had their annual meeting on october 18, 006. this is one of the yearly activities. in the meeting, the board presents the plans for the next year and the bookkeeping. the annual meeting was held at the new metro line (noord/Zuidlijn) in amsterdam. in addition, the program included a presentation about the design of immersed tunnel and an excursion in the building pit. the building pit has two functions, one as construction dock for the concrete tunnel elements and finally as insitu tunnel for the approach of the immersed tunnel under the river iJ. furthermore the dutch Plaxis Users association has organised a workshop on Geotechnical modelling which was attended by 30 enthusiastic Plaxis Users. a total of 10 speakers presented topics ranging from determination from geotechnical parameters, geometrical modelling, constitutive and numerical modelling to reliability and safety approach. the speakers and their topics are presented below: - otto Heeres, Geotechnical modelling, Public Works department of rotterdam/ delft University of technology - timo schweckendiek, are safety factors safe?, tno/ delft University of technology - Jelke dijkstra, modelling of pile foundations, delft University of technology/ Geodelft 

Recent Activities

of russian User meetings. one paper which can be found is from mr. e. Zakharov. Below you can find an abstract and some pictures of his presentation. the full paper in russian language will be posted soon on the russian Plaxis Website. mr. e. Zakharov of ooo lengiproengproject. subsoil deformation analysis in the course of underground structures building. in this paper the Plaxis programs are used for subsoil deformation analysis in case of underground collector failure simulation. the procedure suggested makes it possible to understand surface constructions operation in accident and present an optimum collector placing scheme. the procedure under consideration has been successfully used in a number of construction projects in st.-Petersburg. on the bases of the analysis, recommendations of reinforcement measures are given, concerning st.-Petersburg historical centre buildings.

Plaxis in Hong Kong

on January 19 a seminar was held at the scoPe lecture theatre city University of Hong kong. the activity was well attended by 60 participants and they were mainly from the geotechnical fraternity in Hong kong. dr. andy Pickles gave an interesting and informative presentation on his experience of using finite element analysis in daily routine engineering design work. dr. lee siew Wei described and presented some of the analytical and design problems using Plaxis d and 3d programs. the technical manager of Plaxisasia, William cheang delivered presentations that touch on current and future developments of Plaxis programs. discussions were held at the end of the presentations. a half-day workshop was held at clifftons, a day after the seminar. in this workshop, the aim was on the familiarization of d and 3d finite element analysis using Plaxis. most of the participants were new to the Plaxis programs. the 3d foundation program generated the most interest and questionnaires were related to the modelling of deep excavations, piled foundations and reinforced structures.

topview of the building pit

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Plaxis finite element code for soil and rock analyses

Activities 2007
19 - 21 March 2007 course computational Geotechnics (German) stuttgart, Germany 26 - 29 March 2007 international course for experienced Plaxis users antwerpen, Belgium 1 - 4 april 5th international Workshop on applications of computational mechanics in Geotechnical engineering Guimaraes, Portugal 18 - 19 april 2007 Plaxis user meeting Uk london, manchester, United kingdom 25 - 27 april 2007 nUmoG X tenth international symposium on numerical models in Geomechanics rhodes, Greece 5 - 10 May 2007 ita-aites World tunnel congress 007 Prague, czech republic 8 - 11 May 2007 16th southeast asian Geotechnical conference selangor darul ehsan, malaysia 12 - 14 June 2007 course computational Geotechnics manchester, United kingdom 25 - 28 June 2007 course on advanced computational Geotechnics sydney, australia 16 - 20 July 2007 Xiii PcsmGe 007 isla de margarita, Venezuela 24 - 27 July 2007 course on computational Geotechnics and dynamics chicago, Usa 10 - 14 september 2007 course on advanced computational Geotechnics ankara, turkey 24 - 27 september 2007 XiV ecsmGe madrid, spain 21 - 24 October 2007 10 anZ smGe, Brisbane, australia 7 - 9 November 2007 1th european Plaxis User meeting karlsruhe, Germany 26 - 28 November 2007 1 african regional conference smGe, yaounde, cameroon-africa 10 - 14 December 2007 13th asian regional conference on soil mechanics and Geotechnical engineering calcutta, india

Plaxis BV
Po Box 57 600 an delft the netherlands tel: +31 (0)15 51 77 0 fax: +31 (0)15 57 31 07 e-mail: info@plaxis.nl Website: www.plaxis.nl

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