About Plaxis

In the nineteen seventies, research on the use of the finite element method and constitutive models for geotechnical design was carried out at the Technical University of Delft by and under the supervision of Professor Pieter A. Vermeer.

Immediate cause for this research was the question from the Dutch Ministry of Public Works to find a solution to predict the possible movement of the famous Dutch “Oosterschelde-dam” which protects an important part of the Netherlands against flooding.

This resulted in a software code that enabled elastic-plastic calculations for plane strain problems based on high-order elements. Later, the code was enriched and could deal with axi-symmetric problems too. It was in that time that the name Plaxis, short for Plasticity Axi-Symmetry, was used for the first time.

Over the years there has been a continuous flow of new developments added to the code, to which improvements were made by a variety of researchers. In 1986 a new phase started for Plaxis because the Dutch Ministry of Public Works (Rijkswaterstaat) together with the Technical University of Delft started a program with the purpose to make the use of the Finite Element Method applicable to practicing geotechnical engineers. This turned out to be a crucial move and the code was adopted and used outside the University in various projects. This led in 1993 to the decision to spin-off the activities around Plaxis code from the University into a small company, Plaxis bv, and the founding of the Stichting Plaxis. The latter manages the IPR on behalf of the initial owners.

From 1993 onwards Plaxis bv has developed its software with the contribution of many individuals from outside Plaxis bv. Milestones in the nineties were amongst others:

• The introduction of new hard and soft soil models including creep
• The migration from MS-DOS to Windows
• The incorporation of a dynamic module in Plaxis
• The expansion of the use of Plaxis outside the Netherlands

In the years starting from 2000 Finite Element Method became really accepted in generic geotechnical engineering and the Plaxis customer base grew strongly. Since that time we have introduced amoungst others:

• The first 3-dimensional version of Plaxis (3D Tunnel)
• Transient groundwater flow by means of PlaxFlow
• Plaxis 3D Foundation
• More advanced soil models

We will continue this process of developing our software onwards into the future.

With the developing technology the company itself has also changed. We have grown considerably in number of people, disciplines, nationalities and customers.