Problem description

A flow calculation may be used to lower the water level around an excavation. In some cases it may happen that although the water level is lowered beneath the bottom of the excavation still external water loads are (partly) visualized inside the excavation. This may give the impression that there is still water inside the excavation whereas actually there is not. Also see the example graph below.

Solution

This has been resolved in PLAXIS 3D AE.02.

In PLAXIS 3D AE.00/3D AE.01, we made improvements for the visualization of the external waterloads, but this problem may still happen for some rare cases for these versions.

To be able to examine if indeed the water loads are incorrectly visualised you may for example:

• switch back and forth between phases in the output program which helps in some cases to remove the incorrect visualisation of the external waterloads;
• inspect water pressures, total stresses, deformations etc. and use engineering judgement to determine if the external waterloads are there or not;
• inspect the numerical values of the external water loads in the table Project > Water load information. The relevant table values should be nihil.