I defined a space which represents air in foundation by using polycurve. But PLAXIS-3D is a finite element model which water freely does not pass thorugh it. As a considering Plaxis asks me to define an material model and properties, how can i perform this? Is Linear elastic model more suitable choose? thanks.
Dear Emre,
If it's air then indeed Linear Elastic with low stiffness and high permeability should work fine.
With kind regards,
Dennis Waterman
The unit weights should be represent the air as well. Thank you for your feedback. Is selecting the void ratio as 2, reasonable choice?
Kind Regards,
Emre Dumlu
Well, I know soils that have higher void ratio than 2, so to model air it seems a bit low. Remember, the void ratio determines the storage and in case of air (assuming the air can escape) the storage is the entire volume whereas with a void ratio of 2 the storage will only be 67% of the volume. So why not use a void ratio of 10? That would result in a storage of over 90% of the volume, which seems more appropriate.By the way, this of course only makes sense if you're going to do a fully-coupled analysis. For any other analysis void ratio is not used.With kind regards,