Problem description

The external waterloads on active model boundaries and/or structures are generated by the Input program prior to the actual (flow) calculation. In general the calculation kernel copies these external waterloads and transfers them to the Output program after the Finite Element calculation (Note: the calculation kernel only calculates the pore stresses inside the active soil elements). However due to an issue with the 2D AE.01/.02 calculation kernel the external waterloads may be incorrectly overwritten in the case of a flow calculation in which a plate is extended above the soil. This can cause wrong results due to missing water loads acting on the wall.

Figure 1. Example of missing external water loads on the high water side (left)

Solution

This issue is now solved since PLAXIS 2D 2015.00

In PLAXIS 2D AE.01 and AE.02 this can only be overcome by modelling the plate elements as volume elements: define a cluster that will represent the real geometry of the plate, and assign an appropriate Soil and Interfaces material dataset to it that correctly defines the mechanical behaviour of the plate.