GeoSuite Assistance for the Calculation of Settlement

Abstract

As part of the development of the Norwegian-Swedish software GeoSuite, a module with geoassistance was developed and implemented. The paper describes this user-assistance, called "Wizard", helping the user with 1D, 2D and 3D calculations of stability, settlement, piles, excavations, bearing capacity and slope run-out distance. Wizard is an optional, interactive assistance popping up with information on most of the steps of an analysis for design: developing a soil profile, selecting appropriate parameters for an analysis, interpreting in situ and laboratory test results, selecting a type of analysis (1D, 2D or 3D), running an analysis and interpreting the results of an analysis. For example in a settlement analysis, the user can, with the help of the Wizard, initialize the data, describe the foundation geometry, foundation type and foundation stiffness, construct the load history and select ground improvement options. The user can also initialize the stress distribution, describe the distribution of the pore water pressure and that of any excess pore water pressure. Wizard has partial wiki-characteristics: Wizard invites the user to note down its comments on a website, it makes topic associations with links and seeks to involve the user in an on-going process of improvement. The module also helps the user do simpler statistical analysis of soil parameters, examine the laboratory test results in terms of sample disturbance and compare soil parameters with published correlations among soil parameters.