GeoStudio | PLAXIS - PLAXIS 2D CE V22.02.00 Release notes

New in PLAXIS 2D CONNECT Edition V22 Update 2

Release: October 2022

PLAXIS 2D CONNECT Edition V22 (22.02.00.1078) contains the following improvements and updates compared to PLAXIS 2D CONNECT Edition V22.01:

Compatibility notes: Due to the major changes in the material database and the unit system, PLAXIS 2D CONNECT Edition Version 22 will be installed alongside Version 21, instead of overwriting it. When opening PLAXIS 2D V21 projects with PLAXIS 2D V22, projects will automatically be saved as a converted copy with the _converted suffix and will require recalculation. When using non-SI-units, the mesh also needs to be regenerated.
The PLAXIS 2D CONNECT Edition V21 projects will remain unchanged.
Earlier versions of PLAXIS will not be able to open files saved in PLAXIS 2D V22.

New features

Cable bolt element
Added cable bolt element and material type to simulate rock reinforcement like grouted cables or frictional/grouted bolts that work mostly in tension/compression. Material definition includes input of bond stiffness and bond strength parameters in line with rock engineering practice. Other capabilities include confining stress dependency and pre-stressing of the element.

Hoek-Brown model improvements
Added tension cut-off and tensile strength parameters to the material parameter input. Safety calculations for Hoek-Brown materials now correctly reduce the tensile strength as well, providing more realistic safety factors.

Simplification of polylines and polygons
Exported CAD files can contain many less relevant intermediate points and lines. Once imported into PLAXIS 2D, these dense geometries will result in overly fine meshes and will slow down. During the import of, for example, geological cross-sections coming from Leapfrog or CAD applications, users can now select the "reduce point density" option to reduce the number of points of polygons or polylines present in the imported file. By reducing the number of points during the import process, the user can optimize the imported geometry for numerical analysis.

Free field boundary improvements
The free field boundaries implementation has been updated for this release offering several improvements. Deformation patterns, particularly along the boundaries, are now consistent with those expected in a far field analysis and there is no longer a need to include drained material columns at the model boundaries when performing an undrained or a partially undrained analysis. Several validation exercises were developed to ensure that the response when using free field BCs is consistent with what is expected from theory of wave propagation, as well as obtained when using other BCs (e.g. tied degrees of freedom).

Removed Academic watermarks
For users of Academic licenses, PLAXIS no longer displays watermarks in Input and Output.

Fixed issues

The following known issues have been fixed in this version:

Solved: [861673] Some Output results may not consider project units in PLAXIS CONNECT Edition V22.00

A large number of issues have been addressed, including:

[373386] Improved using the available phycial cores
[376830] Saved views in PLAXIS Output were not always stored properly
[378178] Fixed an issue when running many repatative calculations of the same PLAXIS 2D file
[378285] Fixed an issue with removing elements that are connected with tunnel elements
[378858] Improved PLAXIS 2D dxf import when the cross section is not on the base plane
[379618] Improvements on the geometry import of tunnel sections inside the Tunnel Designer
[579651] Import and export of geometry works again when using non-ASCII characters
[682240] Dynamic boundarry conditions now follow the same geometric tolerances to avoid incorrect node generation for free field elements
[709495] Output can now show nodal rotations φ_z for embedded beams relative to the global system of axis
[709836] Fixed an issue with fixed rotation nodes for plates on the default boundaries when combined with interface elements.
[727311] Improved detection of proper tunnel configurations
[727614] When starting SoilTest from PLAXIS Input when using Python, the Remote Scripting server was not started, preventing further automation. This is now resolved.
[738133] Fixed a typo/style issue in PLAXIS Output: .GeoGrid is now properly called .Geogrid
[738567] Added display of Van Genuchten parameters in side panel when defining unsaturated soil data
[749441] The thickness of plate material datasets in the command line/Python is changed and called .d. (This was incorrectly defined as .D2d and .D3d)
[774167] Fixed an issue in the UI stability when interacting with the Hoek-Brown side panels in the material dataset.
[801953] Improvements on importing *.dxf files with small polygons and polycurves
[814475] Re-enabled UBC Sand parameters in Sensitivity Analysis and Parameter variation
[822424] Improved stability of importing dxf files into the Tunnel Designer
[847930] The embedded beam connection type was not always shown properly in Staged Construction mode. This incorrect connection is now hidden to avoid incorrect interpretation. Connection type can be read in Structures mode.
[854994] Fixed the issue with stiffness determination in the embedded beam's skin resistance when this embedded in a Concrete material.
[855298] Fixed an issue to display EA value for Anchor material datasets in the report generator
[864536] Printing all materials in Output prints all data types again
[866406] Solved an issue in the display of polygon coordinates in the selection and model explorer when using ft as length unit
[889596] Added a required deployment file for UDSM DLL compilation (extrainf.for)
[891368] Anchor forces are now displayed correct in any unit system (SI, imperial)
[903530] Reabled adding strength parameters from soil models in Output Report Generator
[916365] Command runner can again continue after resolving an incorrect command
[946287] Improved stability for Hoek-Brown in combination with design approaches
[948301] Reverted the enumerated value for UDSM Soil model type. It is now again 100
[960098] Improved feedback mechanism when using Hardening Soil with phi equal to zero
[966557] Resolved UI stability when interacting with the Hoek-Brown helper side panels in the material window
[967211] Fixed an issue when selecting Hoek-Brown in the Model Explorer
[968390] Fixed a crash when reading material datasets created PLAXIS 2D 2015.00
[971357] Fixed an issue for interface pore pressures when using updated mesh with updated water pressures in a tunnel configuration with dry clusters
[972451] Re-enabled support of embedded beams in the PLAXIS 2D to 3D converter
[975492] Fixed an issue in showing τ_max and τ_rel results for soils using the NGI-ADP model

Download links

You can update to the latest version using the CONNECTION Client, or download the installer via Bentley System's Software downloads.