Soil Movement & Stability

Today we rely on a network of tunnels, pipelines and underground structures for everything from power supply to transport. The performance of these tunnels depends on their material and structural integrity and their ability to resist external forces.

The design of deep excavations and tunnels in crowded cities is a technical challenge for engineers. In these environments, engineers often need to look at the effects both below and above the ground (loading the ground and excavation). Our range of soil movement and stability software provides the tools needed to do this quickly and effectively.

To estimate the effect on surrounding structures, most urban tunnelling or excavation work requires ground movement and structural damage assessments. But producing them with different analysis programs and spreadsheets can be time-consuming and make calculations difficult to check. Xdisp automates the process and displays the data in clear 3-D graphics.

Pdisp offers a quicker and more accurate way to predict soil displacement due to load than using Newmark charts. The program predicts displacements in a soil mass due to vertical and horizontal loads, showing the likely settlement pattern beneath and beyond the loaded area.

Slope provides an easy and accurate way to study a slip surface to find factors of safety against failure, and to check the improvements from reinforcement. The software performs two-dimensional slope stability analysis using the slices methods and presents the results in a clear graphical format.

Whether engineers need to do two-dimensional finite element computations in plane stress, plane strain, or axial symmetry, Safe takes care of it. The software identifies pore pressures and effective stresses separately and includes gravitational loads and initial stresses.