Updates

PLAXIS 2D 2011.02

Fixed Bugs in version 2011.2

Input Program

• When clusters are accidentally deactivated and reactivated during Staged Construction, interfaces now will be correctly reactivated in water conditions as well.
• Fixed the issue where the geometry points were wrongly shown in the “Distributed load” input menu.
• Solved the conversion problem when importing large models in non-metric units. 
• Input recognises small clusters during the geometry generation.
• The desktop is no longer activated by accident (it hid the Input program).
• Some issues related to v9 project conversion have been fixed:
  - It is no longer necessary to redefine the calculation phases in staged construction to accomplish pore pressures regeneration after re-meshing.
  - Solved the wrong behaviour of deactivated dry clusters during flow calculations after project conversion.
  - Fixed the incorrect initial stresses generation in converted projects, found when switching the initial phase from K0-procedure to gravity loading after conversion.
  - Conversion does no longer crash when no .msh is present, or the source was opened from within the DTA folder.

Calculations Program

• The 64-bit kernel is now much more stable.
• Every Staged Construction phase now starts the calculation from SumMStage=0. It used to be the case that, under certain circumstances, the SumMStage value to begin with was copied from the end SumMStage from the previous phase. This will no longer happen.
• Calculating projects with more than 100 phases is now possible.
• The factor of safety criterion during sensitivity analysis is available for comparing results.
• The not relevant parameters that were present in the iterative procedure manual settings have been removed.
• It is no longer possible to delete the initial phase.
• The Print feature is now fully functional.
• The message requesting to select nodes and stress points for curves before calculation will no longer pop up more than once if “No” it is chosen.
• Fixed the wrong external water loads in deactivated clusters after “updated mesh + updated water pressures” analysis.
• “Error 99 - (Unknown error)” (a problem where the 32bit kernel tried to allocate more than 2Gb memory) has been renamed to “Error 32 (Memory allocation error)”.
• Fixed the problem for dynamic projects with spectrum continued over multiple phases; the interference introduced at the beginning of a new phase has been removed.
• Made general calculation improvements for projects with transient flow and external waterloads.

Output Program

• When selecting structural results (e.g. plates) to be included in the report generator, these are now always included in the report, regardless of the use of the advanced selection.
• Solved the issues for wrong plots in cross sections along cluster borders.
• Reintroduced the possibility of overviewing the phase information in Output program through “Calculation information per phase” via the “View” menu.

PLAXIS 2D 2011.01

New and improved features in 2011.01

• New 64-bit calculation kernel. (VIP) The advantages of this new kernel are:
  - Larger models can be calculated: In the 64-bit calculation kernel the memory limit is determined by the maximum available RAM memory in the computer system, improving the 2 GB limit of the 32-bit kernel.
  - In most cases the 64-bit calculation kernel will improve the calculation time.

Fixed bugs in version 2011.01

Input Program

• Fixed the issue where it was not possible to overwrite the K0x value manually when using OCR or POP.

Calculations Program

• Fix for the random calculation stop for a consolidation phase in combination with 15-noded elements and interfaces.
• The issue where the external water loads were wrongly applied during safety and dynamic calculations has been fixed.
• When using anisotropic plate materials (axisymmetric projects only), the kernel will now identify them correctly as anisotropic instead of isotropic.

PLAXIS 2D 2011.00

New and improved features in 2011

• PLAXIS 2D ‘Design Approaches’ new feature enables PLAXIS to be used for design calculations, by means of partial factors for loads and model parameters.
• New PLAXIS Material Model: Sekiguchi-Ohta (Inviscid) that has been developed to formulate a constitutive law for normally consolidated clay.
• Bending moments can be assigned as a value at a specific point in plates.
• PLAXIS 2D allows orthotropic material behaviour in geogrids and plates, introducing an additional axial stiffness in the out of plane direction.

Input Program

• It is possible to define a scaling factor when a geometry is imported.
• The tunnel designer allows including inner interfaces.

Calculations Program

• ‘Preview’ button introduced in the Calculation window that allows to preview intermediate results during calculation.
• Added column in the calculation phase list, containing the pore pressure calculation type, enhancing the phases overview.
• Tension cut-off and cavitation cut-off features are greyed out in calculation modes where their use would provide unrealistic results or in case that they are taken into account by the calculation process.
• It is possible to know if some stress points were corrected to meet the model criteria during the initial stresses generation (e.g. stress points that violate the Mohr-Coulomb criterion). It will be shown as a soft error (further details about soft errors in the Reference Manual).

Output Program

• It is now possible to have inaccurate plastic points visualized separately from the rest of plastic points.
• The new measurement line tool add-on allows to measure relative displacements between steps and phases.
• Display rotations
• Drop-down phase list now includes the phase name instead of just the phase number.
• Multiple improvements in the Report Generator.

Transient flow module

• Improved the steps determination for transient flow calculations.
• Transient water head is applied automatically in closed boundaries.

Fixed bugs in version 2011.00

Input Program:

• Solved several issues related to anchors:
  - The maximum anchor force is correctly divided by spacing.
  - In case of switching from elastoplastic anchor model to elastic the change is performed successfully.
  - Geometrical properties of anchors are correctly store and saved when they are modified.
• Closed flow boundaries are colored red when they are selected.
• Conversion feature recognizes ‘lb’ (pound) units.
• Now it is possible to enter negative increments for shear strength in the NGI-ADP model.

Calculations Program:

• Fixed the error produced during consolidation when interfaces were used in the project boundary.
• Fixed the random error during consolidation calculation with 15-noded elements.
• Transient flow pore pressure calculation type will not be reset to steady state flow when the calculation type is changed.
• It is possible to activate interfaces in Water Conditions mode for Undrained B materials during phase definition.
• Fixed the issue where the bending moments were reset at the beginning of each phase.
• Fixed several issues related to the water loads and the pore pressure generation.
• Solved the problems with calculation of projects named with non-Latin characters.
• Fixed the calculation of stresses for curved interfaces.

Output Program:

• Corrected the display of excess pore pressures in plates and interfaces. (Previously, they were zero).
• Fixed the issue where the bending moments visualization was reversed for plates in tunnels.
• Included project acceleration.
• Solved the differences between pore pressure preview and the calculation results.
• Reintroduction of the equivalent force in shear stresses for cross sections.
• Option to disable the visualization of hinges.
• Display the void ratio correctly.
• The export feature of the report generator no longer deletes the target folder

Transient flow module:

• Groundwater flow calculations and consolidation flow in EPP mode result into different flow results and are displayed separately.

Dynamics module:

• Saturated weight is taken into account by the absorbent boundaries during calculation.

Codemeter firmware and Codemeter drivers required

• The minimal required Codemeter firmware and driver are, respectively, versions 1.18 and 4.30. The versions provided with PLAXIS 2D 2011.0 are 1.18 and 4.30d. PLAXIS recommends to always use the latest versions.