Updates

When installing PLAXIS 3D, please make sure any previous installations of beta versions or release candidates have been removed!

New and improved features

• Support for dynamics. This is a separate module, please contact Plaxis Sales (sales@plaxis.nl) for more information.
• Allow explicit specification of the reference point of surface loads and surface prescribed displacements. This value is stored relative to the location of the parent geometric object. Note that this relative position is maintained during translation operations, but not during rotations.
• Mindlin plate / shell elements have been enhanced to reduce the  effect of shear locking. This results in improved accuracy of bending moment, especially for very thin curved plates or shells. Despite this improvement, it would still require a locally refined mesh in order to predict bending moments at an acceptable level of accuracy.
• Select materials and water levels directly in the tree in a combobox
• "Edit" menu item in the popup menu for easier access to specific editors
• Import window works a bit smoother when importing huge numbers of objects (the repeated clustering actions are avoided)
• The "Constant" setting for line and surface load/prescribed displacement distributions has been renamed to "Uniform", in order to prevent confusion. Existing projects and command lines should still work, but avoid manually specifying "Constant'' in new commands - use "Uniform" instead.
• Modifications to the phases in the phases form now fire one command per change, rather than grouping a set of changes into one "setproperties" command
• Names of several properties of polycurves have changed, e.g.  Section is now called Segment. Saved projects remain compatible, but existing command line logs may require tweaking.
• Default Discretization angle for arc segments in polycurves has changed from 15 degrees to 5 degrees. Saved projects are not modified, but playing back existing command line logs may deliver different geometric results.
• Standard tool allows only panning and selecting, in order to prevent accidental modifications of the model. The move tool is available under a separate button.

Fixed bugs

• Fixed detection of text versus binary STL format, which should read to better importing of STL files.
• Fixed a couple of issues in import, premeshing and meshing
• Enumerated properties can be copied using the "set" command, e.g. "set Phase_2.Solver Phase_1.Solver"
• Clusters that are explicitly set to "Dry" will be impermeable in groundwater flow.
• Fixed the known issue in 2011 related to external water loads on edges shared by closed surfaces and other model boundaries
• Fixed the known issue in 2011 related to the calculation of boundary conditions in clusters bordering on the outside of the model
• The "ignore undrained behaviour" checkbox for safety phases is no longer always checked regardless of user actions
• Numerous other fixes and tweaks
• Fixed the known issue in 2011 that saturation was always  displayed as 0% in Output when pore pressures are generated using a phreatic level calculation.

Known issues and compatibility

• Command compatibility notes (with versions prior to 2011) - When trying to play back existing commands that create/modify geotextile materials, an error may be given because of the new anisotropic functionality. The EA property has been split into EA1 and EA2 (which are identical if the new IsIsotropic property is set to True), and the Np property has been split into Np1 and Np2 (which are identical if the new IsIsotropic property is set to True).

When installing PLAXIS 3D, please make sure any previous installations of beta versions or release candidates have been removed!

New and improved features

• Support for dynamics. This is a separate module, please contact Plaxis Sales (sales@plaxis.nl) for more information.
• Allow explicit specification of the reference point of surface loads and surface prescribed displacements. This value is stored relative to the location of the parent geometric object. Note that this relative position is maintained during translation operations, but not during rotations.
• Mindlin plate / shell elements have been enhanced to reduce the  effect of shear locking. This results in improved accuracy of bending moment, especially for very thin curved plates or shells. Despite this improvement, it would still require a locally refined mesh in order to predict bending moments at an acceptable level of accuracy.
• Select materials and water levels directly in the tree in a combobox
• "Edit" menu item in the popup menu for easier access to specific editors
• Import window works a bit smoother when importing huge numbers of objects (the repeated clustering actions are avoided)
• The "Constant" setting for line and surface load/prescribed displacement distributions has been renamed to "Uniform", in order to prevent confusion. Existing projects and command lines should still work, but avoid manually specifying "Constant'' in new commands - use "Uniform" instead.
• Modifications to the phases in the phases form now fire one command per change, rather than grouping a set of changes into one "setproperties" command
• Names of several properties of polycurves have changed, e.g.  Section is now called Segment. Saved projects remain compatible, but existing command line logs may require tweaking.
• Default Discretization angle for arc segments in polycurves has changed from 15 degrees to 5 degrees. Saved projects are not modified, but playing back existing command line logs may deliver different geometric results.
• Standard tool allows only panning and selecting, in order to prevent accidental modifications of the model. The move tool is available under a separate button.

Fixed bugs

• Fixed detection of text versus binary STL format, which should read to better importing of STL files.
• Fixed a couple of issues in import, premeshing and meshing
• Enumerated properties can be copied using the "set" command, e.g. "set Phase_2.Solver Phase_1.Solver"
• Clusters that are explicitly set to "Dry" will be impermeable in groundwater flow.
• Fixed the known issue in 2011 related to external water loads on edges shared by closed surfaces and other model boundaries
• Fixed the known issue in 2011 related to the calculation of boundary conditions in clusters bordering on the outside of the model
• The "ignore undrained behaviour" checkbox for safety phases is no longer always checked regardless of user actions
• Numerous other fixes and tweaks
• Fixed the known issue in 2011 that saturation was always  displayed as 0% in Output when pore pressures are generated using a phreatic level calculation.

Known issues and compatibility

• Command compatibility notes (with versions prior to 2011) - When trying to play back existing commands that create/modify geotextile materials, an error may be given because of the new anisotropic functionality. The EA property has been split into EA1 and EA2 (which are identical if the new IsIsotropic property is set to True), and the Np property has been split into Np1 and Np2 (which are identical if the new IsIsotropic property is set to True).

When installing PLAXIS 3D, please make sure any previous installations of beta versions or release candidates have been removed!

New and improved features

• Support for dynamics. This is a separate module, please contact Plaxis Sales (sales@plaxis.nl) for more information.
• Allow explicit specification of the reference point of surface loads and surface prescribed displacements. This value is stored relative to the location of the parent geometric object. Note that this relative position is maintained during translation operations, but not during rotations.
• Mindlin plate / shell elements have been enhanced to reduce the  effect of shear locking. This results in improved accuracy of bending moment, especially for very thin curved plates or shells. Despite this improvement, it would still require a locally refined mesh in order to predict bending moments at an acceptable level of accuracy.
• Select materials and water levels directly in the tree in a combobox
• "Edit" menu item in the popup menu for easier access to specific editors
• Import window works a bit smoother when importing huge numbers of objects (the repeated clustering actions are avoided)
• The "Constant" setting for line and surface load/prescribed displacement distributions has been renamed to "Uniform", in order to prevent confusion. Existing projects and command lines should still work, but avoid manually specifying "Constant'' in new commands - use "Uniform" instead.
• Modifications to the phases in the phases form now fire one command per change, rather than grouping a set of changes into one "setproperties" command
• Names of several properties of polycurves have changed, e.g.  Section is now called Segment. Saved projects remain compatible, but existing command line logs may require tweaking.
• Default Discretization angle for arc segments in polycurves has changed from 15 degrees to 5 degrees. Saved projects are not modified, but playing back existing command line logs may deliver different geometric results.
• Standard tool allows only panning and selecting, in order to prevent accidental modifications of the model. The move tool is available under a separate button.

Fixed bugs

• Fixed detection of text versus binary STL format, which should read to better importing of STL files.
• Fixed a couple of issues in import, premeshing and meshing
• Enumerated properties can be copied using the "set" command, e.g. "set Phase_2.Solver Phase_1.Solver"
• Clusters that are explicitly set to "Dry" will be impermeable in groundwater flow.
• Fixed the known issue in 2011 related to external water loads on edges shared by closed surfaces and other model boundaries
• Fixed the known issue in 2011 related to the calculation of boundary conditions in clusters bordering on the outside of the model
• The "ignore undrained behaviour" checkbox for safety phases is no longer always checked regardless of user actions
• Numerous other fixes and tweaks
• Fixed the known issue in 2011 that saturation was always  displayed as 0% in Output when pore pressures are generated using a phreatic level calculation.

Known issues and compatibility

• Command compatibility notes (with versions prior to 2011) - When trying to play back existing commands that create/modify geotextile materials, an error may be given because of the new anisotropic functionality. The EA property has been split into EA1 and EA2 (which are identical if the new IsIsotropic property is set to True), and the Np property has been split into Np1 and Np2 (which are identical if the new IsIsotropic property is set to True).