PLAXIS SOFTWARE

Tutorial Week1-1: Getting started

Dr. Long Yu
Centre for Offshore Foundation Systems
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Contacts

Dr. Long Yu
Email: yu@civil.uwa.edu.au
yu@civil uwa edu au
Office: ENCM 1108 (inside 1110)

Miss Vickie Kong

Email: kong@civil.uwa.edu.au
Office: ENCM 103

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Before the class

• All the students are supposed to have set up

PLAXIS software
ft successfully.
f ll
• Please try to run PLAXIS in your laptop and make
sure it works well.
• Please ask help
p from the IT support
pp if yyou have any
y
problems to open PLAXIS.
– IT Manager:
g Dr. Wengeg Liu
wenge@civil.uwa.edu.au

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Three General Steps of FEM in Civil Engineering

• 1) Pre-processing

• 2) Calculation

• 3) Post-processing

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 1) Pre-processing

Element

Structure:

Discretization

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2) Calculation Most difficult

• Theories:
– deformation, flow, consolidation …

• Constitutive models
– Stress-strain relationships …

• FE formulations
• …

Commercial software

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3) Post-processing

• Check the results and shown them in your report

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Geotechnical Problem in this class

What’s the maximum bearing

capacity for the soils to build a
cylinder silo?

From Google
g

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Step1: pre-processing

• γunsat = 18 kN/m3, γsat = 20 kN/m3

• cref = 50 kPa, φ=ψ= 0°
5m
5m • Eref = 20000 kPa, ν’ = 0.35
25m

Stiff clay
cla
2

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Practical problem -> FE model

• Axisymmetry
• Discretise the soil domain
• Use a rigid plate to
simulate the silo
• How large the load can
lead to failure

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The updated PLAXIS is version 9.02. The 1st part ‘1. Input’ is where we
perform
pe o p
pre-processing
e p ocess g

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We are asked whether to define a new
problem or to retrieve a previously defined
project.
Today we are going to create a new project.
Click ‘New project’ and press ‘OK’.

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 Two Tab sheets

In the first tab sheet, we can enter a brief description of the problem as the title of the
project. Input ‘start’ as the title.
In addition, the type of analysis and the type of elements must be specified.
‘Axisymmetry’ model and ‘15-Node’ elements are selected, since the silo is
axisymmetric.
Keep the ‘Acceleration’ parameters as default
Click ‘Next’ or ‘Dimensions’ to switch to the other tab sheet 13
 1 2

1. These are the basic units

2. The minimum dimensions of draw area, the geometry model will fit
the draw area. Make sure the range the draw area can contain all the
geometry.
3. ‘Spacing’ means the space between the grids, input 5 metres for this
problem.
p

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This is where you perform pre-processing, which includes:
• Create your model
• Place loads and boundary conditions
• Assign material properties
• Mesh your model
• …

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Draw the boundary of the soil domain
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Draw a 5 m plate to simulate the silo
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A fully fixity at the base of the geometry should be applied. And roller
conditions
co d t o s at tthee ve
vertical
t ca sside
de sshould
ou d aalso
so be app
applied.
ed. Thiss ca
can be do
donee
easily by click ‘standard fixities’ icon.
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The standard fixities option is suitable for most geotechnical problems.
Draw ‘Distributed Load’
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After that, we’ll define the material of the clay.
Click the ‘Material sets’ button on the toolbar, we can
see the ‘Material
Material sets
sets’ window.
window
Select ‘soil & interface’ as the set type.
To create a new material, click the ‘New’ button near
the lower side of the window.

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There will appear a dialog box with three tab sheets.
1. Write ‘clay’
clay in the identification box; select Mohr-Coulomb
Mohr Coulomb and
undrained type.
2. Enter the value of unit weight, 18 and 20 respectively.
Cli k ‘next’
Click ‘ t’ or click
li k ‘‘parameters’
t ’ tto proceed
d with
ith th
the input
i t off model
d l
parameters. 21
If poison’s ratio is entered, we only need input the stiffness modules into one of these
there boxes. The other two will be calculated automatically

Since this problem does not include interfaces, the third tab sheet can be skipped. Click ‘ok’
button to confirm the input of the current material data set.

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Dragg the data set ‘clay’
y form the material sets window to the soil domain and drop
p it. The
colour of the soil domain will change if we assign the material successfully.

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Input material of the plate

Select ‘Set type’ as ‘Plates’

Name the material as ‘footing’, set a very large value
in EA and EI to simulate a rigid footing

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Drag the data set ‘footing’ form the material sets window to the plate area and drop it. Note
that the plate is very thin and be careful when dropping.
Then, click ‘Mesh’ to mesh your model.
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A new fframe lik
like this
hi appears and
d shows
h the
h ddetail
il off the
h mesh.
h MMake
k sure you click
li k
‘Update’ to accept the mesh, and this frame will be closed. 26
 Keep default
value for water
Click ‘Initial conditions’ unit weight

Draw the phreatic level at

the depth of 20m

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 Click to
‘Generate water
pressures’

Select ‘Phreatic level’

The water pressure will be shown

by ‘Principal directions’ 28
Select other options to show
water pressures

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Click the right green button
Then generate initial stresses

This dialog
will appear
and make sure
the
h k0
k value
l iis
1.0

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The initial stress at the
bottom should be
γ unsat × 5m + (γ sat − γ wat )× 20m = 290kN / m 2

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• The pre-processing ends

• Week 1
1-1
1 Tutorial ends

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