GGSD Program Details for ZSOIL

ZSOIL

Category	Numerical analysis (soil)
Publisher	Zace Services Ltd
Platform	Win95/98, WinNT
Status	Commercial
Description	ZSOIL is a geotechnical, foundation and underground flow engineering program based on the finite element method that simulates most of the natural processes encountered in geotechnical and foundation engineering including stability, consolidation, creep, excavation and underground flow. Non-linear axisymmetric and plane strain drivers offering any combination of the following options: Automatic evaluation of initial stress conditions including steady state flow; Stability analysis; Ultimate load analysis; Pre-stress conditions (anchors); Excavation and construction stages; Consolidation (time dependent process); Volumetric and deviatoric creep (time dependent process); Flow (steady or transient) with time dependent boundary conditions. Interactive quasi-automatic mesh generation and bandwidth optimiser for the finite-element discretisation. An object-oriented mesh generator generates a 10000 element mesh in a matter of minutes. A fully Windows compatible post-processor with capabilities including: cross-sections, time histories and presentations, colour plots, isolines. Soil Idealisation: The user is required to define the vertical cross section of the soil medium using only a coarse finite element mesh that captures the essential geometric features. The program automatically generates the dense mesh necessary for the non-linear analysis and optimises the size of the problem by renumbering the nodes. Element library: The non-linear finite element scheme uses elements which represent the non-linear constitutive soil models; structural elements include a two-node element to simulate anchors or cables, nonlinear beam and shell elements to properly simulate bending of walls and sheet piles, and frictional contact interface elements. Constitutive Models: Mohr-Coulomb, multilaminate, Drucker-Prager-Cap, Hoek-Brown, and Biot's models for consolidation. Loads and Soil Conditions: The program can simulate any type of load and soil stress conditions, for example: Gravity fields and initial stress conditions; Water table and water pressures under steady state or transient conditions; Drained and undrained soil conditions; Explicit definition of Excavation/Construction sequence, with controlled progressive unloading; Imposed displacement fields; Concentrated and distributed forces applied at the boundaries of the soil medium; Unloading control for convergence analysis in tunnels; Consolidation coupled with transient flow in partially saturated media. Several custom versions of the program have been developed upon request and pilot-versions already include constitutive models and algorithms for rock mechanics with crack propagation simulation, anchoring systems, road engineering and multiphase dynamics for the simulation of liquefaction, all in 2D space, axisymmetry, generalised plane strain and 3D. Free demonstration version on the WWW with 100 nodes.
Cost	US Dollars 6900, educational and multiple copy US Dollars 3450
Data formats supported	None stated
Supplier in Switzerland	Zace Services Ltd