Geotechnical analysis is performed for solids consisting of soil materials. To define them, you need to create the corresponding materials in the Basic Objects. The material properties are yielding into the stiffness of these objects.
A new material is created in the RFEM 6 program as described in the chapter Materials of the corresponding manual. The following image shows an example of the dialog box for entering the properties of a soil material.
Main
Within the scope of the geotechnical analysis, the specific inputs explained below should be observed for the definition of soil material.
Material Type
Select “Soil” for the material type.
Material Model
For the “Soil” material type, specific material laws and material models suitable for simulating soil behavior are implemented in the Geotechnical Analysis add-on.
The available material models are listed in the section of the “Edit Material” dialog box shown below.
User-Defined Material
Basic Material Properties
In the “Edit Material” dialog box, enter the basic material properties as characteristic values on the right side of the “Main” tab. You can enter these values manually or import a soil material from the material library. For more information, refer to the corresponding chapter on the Material Library in the RFEM 6 online manual.
After importing a soil material from the material library, if necessary, the properties should be adjusted according to the project-specific specifications.
For materials of the Soil type, two values are to be defined to specify the specific weight depending on the water content. Specify the specific weight of the soil “Drained” and the water-saturated soil “Saturated.”
Isotropic | Soil | Plastic | Modified Hardening Soil
This tab appears when the Modified Hardening Soil model is selected as the material model. Specific parameters for this material model are entered here. This section is described in the subchapter Input – Modified Hardening Soil Model.
Isotropic | Soil | Plastic | Modified Mohr-Coulomb
This tab appears when the modified Mohr-Coulomb model is selected as the material model. Specific parameters for this material model are entered here. This section is described in the subchapter Input – Modified Mohr-Coulomb Model.
Isotropic | Soil | Nonlinear Elastic
This tab appears when the Nonlinear Elastic model has been selected as the material model. Specific parameters for this material model are entered here. This section is described in the subchapter Input – Nonlinear Elastic Model.
Isotropic | Rock | Plastic | Hoek-Brown
This tab appears when the Hoek-Brown model is selected as the material model. Specific parameters for this material model are entered here. This section is described in the subchapter Input – Hoek-Brown Model.
Material Values
The Material Values tab is displayed by default for information about the materials imported from the library.
Stiffness Modification
The Stiffness Modification tab is displayed by default for materials with the User-defined material option activated. No input is required here for the definition of soil materials.
