Hey,
I am trying to calculate pullout capacity of a suction caisson for my thesis at the end of Aug.
I am new at using Plaxis (less than a month) and I've found a tutorial on plaxis website. I have followed it through and got results. However, the plaxis tutorial did not consider the thickness of the pile so I added an inner surface with a smaller radius (3.92 m).
Tried to generate mesh and this error came up
Meshing failed with the following error:
Fatal: Could not generate mesh.Fatal: Invalid element(s) found. Related geometries: BoreholeVolume_1_1. Inspect the geometry locally.Warning: 591 EMR warnings have been detected. The 12 most severe are listed, the remaining 579 are not shown.Warning: # 1/517 of small 3D proximity: detected size 7.97e-02; this is 1.47e+01 times smaller than minimum targeted element size. Related geometries: Surface_1_1, Surface_4_1. Inspect the geometry locally.Warning: # 2/517 of small 3D proximity: detected size 7.97e-02; this is 1.47e+01 times smaller than minimum targeted element size. Related geometries: Surface_1_1, Surface_4_1. Inspect the geometry locally.Warning: # 3/517 of small 3D proximity: detected size 7.97e-02; this is 1.47e+01 times smaller than minimum targeted element size. Related geometries: Surface_1_1, Surface_4_1. Inspect the geometry locally.Warning: # 4/517 of small 3D proximity: detected size 7.97e-02; this is 1.47e+01 times smaller than minimum targeted element size. Related geometries: Surface_1_1, Surface_4_1. Inspect the geometry locally.Warning: # 5/517 of small 3D proximity: detected size 7.97e-02; this is 1.47e+01 times smaller than minimum targeted element size. Related geometries: Surface_1_1, Surface_4_1. Inspect the geometry locally.Warning: # 1/72 of small in-surface proximity: detected size 8.00e-02; this is 1.47e+01 times smaller than minimum targeted element size. Related geometries: Surface_3_1. Inspect the geometry locally.Warning: # 2/72 of small in-surface proximity: detected size 8.00e-02; this is 1.47e+01 times smaller than minimum targeted element size. Related geometries: Surface_3_1. Inspect the geometry locally.Warning: # 3/72 of small in-surface proximity: detected size 8.00e-02; this is 1.47e+01 times smaller than minimum targeted element size. Related geometries: Surface_3_1. Inspect the geometry locally.Warning: # 4/72 of small in-surface proximity: detected size 8.00e-02; this is 1.47e+01 times smaller than minimum targeted element size. Related geometries: Surface_3_1. Inspect the geometry locally.Warning: # 5/72 of small in-surface proximity: detected size 8.00e-02; this is 1.47e+01 times smaller than minimum targeted element size. Related geometries: Surface_2_2. Inspect the geometry locally.Warning: # 1/2 of small edges: detected size 8.00e-02; this is 1.47e+01 times smaller than minimum targeted element size. Related geometries: Surface_2_2, Surface_3_1. Inspect the geometry locally.Warning: # 2/2 of small edges: detected size 8.00e-02; this is 1.47e+01 times smaller than minimum targeted element size. Related geometries: Surface_2_2, Surface_3_1. Inspect the geometry locally.0322> _save "\\adf\storage\j\f\jsf622\Documents\MSc Project\Plaxis 3D\1st try\winged_thick.p3d"
I have also tried to add wings to the caisson and a similar error came up.
In addition, how do I add load to the structure at different angles (0, 30, 45, 60, 80, and 90) ?
I look forward for the feedback
Dear Jozanga,
Welcome to the PLAXIS community!
A similar post was added yesterday, so the information is relevant to you, too. In principle, it is a matter of creating accurate geometry and having no overlap or gaps unless it is necessary.
I would suggest reading the error message carefully and trying to identify the individual objects involved and investigating what is happening.
You can find the post here: https://communities.bentley.com/products/geotech-analysis/f/plaxis-soilvision-forum/232702/plaxis-3d-mesh-warning
About the loading, in the tutorial, it is done via a Rigid body object. You can also add a line load to the plate element.