A navigable lock is temporarily 'empty' due to maintenance. After some time there is a significant increase in the air temperature, which causes thermal expansion of the inner side of the lock, while the soil-side of the concrete block remains relatively cold. This leads to backward bending of the wall and, consequently, to increased lateral stress in the soil behind the wall and increased bending moments in the wall itself.
Figure 1. Temperature distribution around the concrete lock (in magenta/red)
This exercise requires a PLAXIS 2D Ultimate license to access the Thermal features.
The attached *.p2dxlog file contains all the commands to generate the model. With a Bentley Geotechnical SELECT Entitlement [GSE] licence, you can use the commands runner to open the *.p2dxlog file and to execute all commands in one go, see also this instruction.
Thermal and coupled THM analysis [Publications]
PLAXIS 2D Tutorial 16: Free vibration and earthquake analysis of a building [Tutorials]
PLAXIS 2D Tutorial 18: Freeze pipes in tunnel construction [Tutorials]