The Program and its

Applications
by Ari Cohen
-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
Background
etting Started
PLAXIS is comprised of four interconnected
but separate interfaces
-Input
-Calculations
-Output
-Curves
1 Plaxis !nput.lnk
2 Plaxis Calculations.lnk
3 Plaxis Output.lnk
4 Plaxis Curves.lnk
Tutorial 1: The Modeling the Settlement
of a Circular Footing on Sand
1. Choose new or
existing project
. eneral Settings
. Plane Strain or Axisymmetry /
15-Node or 6-Node
. Plane Strain or Axisymmetry

. Plane Strain or Axisymmetry Cont.

5. 15-Node or 6-Node
5. 15-Node or 6-Node Cont.
6. Dimensions
. eometry Contour
. Loads & Boundary Conditions
- Prescribed Displacements
1. Special Conditions placed on geometry lines that control the
displacement of the lines
2. Drawn over geometry lines
3. Can be altered by double clicking on the geometry line associated with it
- Fixities
1. Prescribed displacements equal to zero
2. Can be of horizontal, vertical, or total (horizontal & vertical)
3. Fixities take priority over displacements and other loads
- Standard Fixities
1. Convenient and fast input option for many applications
- Tractions
1. Distributed loads applied to geometry lines
2. Input values given in the dimensions force per unit area
3. Can be altered by double clicking on the geometry line associated with it
- Point Forces
1. Are actually line loads in the out-of-plane direction
2. Can have vertical and horizontal components
- Fixed Rotations
1. Fixes the rotational degree of freedom of a beam
. Loads & Boundary Conditions cont.
Select
Standard
fixities
button
. Loads & Boundary Conditions cont.
Select
Prescribed
displacement
button
. 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
Soils & Interfaces
2 Beams
3 eotextiles &
4 Anchors
- Modeling of Soil Behavior
1. There exist three types of soil models that PLAXIS supports:
Mohr-Coulomb model
2 Hardening-Soil model &
3 Soft-Soil-Creep model
2. Mohr-Coulomb is most often used as good soil data is not always
available to the engineer or scientist
3. Modeling with the Mohr-Coulomb default requires the following five
variables to be input:
oungs modulus, (E)
2 Poissons ratio, (3
3 cohesion, (c)
4 friction angle, (1) and
5 dilatancy angle, ()
- 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:
. Material Properties cont.
. Material Properties cont.
Click
Materials
button
. Material Properties cont.
Select
"New"
material
. Material Properties cont.
Type "sand"
and leave
the other
default
inputs
Select
"New"
material
Enter given
data
. Material Properties cont.
Select
"New"
material
Enter given
data and
click Ok
Drag & Drop
the "Sand"
material
into the
cluster
. Material Properties cont.
10. Mesh eneration
- lobal 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
- lobal 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
10. Mesh eneration cont.
Select
"enerate
mesh"
Once the mesh
window
appears select
"Update"
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 eometry configuration mode
- Water Conditions mode
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
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 roundwater 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 eneration: After a phreatic line or groundwater boundary conditions are specified,
the generate water pressures button is selected to complete the water conditions process
- eometry Configuration mode
Deactivating eometry 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
2 Initial Stress eneration (K
0
-Procedure): 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, 8
3,0
which is related by the coefficient of lateral earth pressure K
0
. A default value is given based on Jakys
formula (1-sin1).
1.Select "Initial
conditions"
button and
accept default
water weight
11. Initial Conditions cont.
. Water levels
will not be
generated in this
example so
proceed to
generate initial
stresses
Accept default
K0 parameters
11. Initial Conditions cont.
Length of lines
note relative
magnitude of
principal
stresses
11. Initial Conditions cont.
Orientation of
lines note
principal
direction
11. Initial Conditions cont.
Finally it is time
to proceed to
the Calculation
phase of the
program
"uestions?