Hi PLAXIS community,
I would like to ask you about the soil-soil interface, please. If I want to choose the formula for elastic sliding, which is determined by the elastic shear stiffness of the interface and the function of the interface thickness. What value of Ks should be taken and how exactly is the interface thickness defined. Is it related to the meshing at the interface, is it determined numerically or is it related to a physical quantity? I would appreciate if you could explain the issue to me. I am willing to validate a hyperbolic law to describe the interface at the soil-soil level, so I am using Plaxis to calculate the initial stiffness of the curve.
Thank you in advance.
Dear Adnan,
Interfaces in PLAXIS actually don't have a real thickness, but only a virtual thickness that is used to determine how stiff the interface should behave. This virtual thickness depends on the global mesh size (hence not the local meshing at the interface) and the virtual interface factor. See the Reference Manual and search for "Virtual interface thickness" as well as the paragraph on the "Interface tabsheet" - this is paragraph 6.1.7 in the latest PLAXIS 2D manual.
With kind regards,
Dennis Waterman