With the release of PLAXIS 2D 2018, a new User Defined Soil Model for liquefaction analysis is introduced, the PM4Sand model (Boulanger & Ziotopoulou, 2017).

The PM4Sand model is defined in the framework of the stress-ratio controlled, critical state compatible, bounding surface plasticity model for sand by Dafalias & Manzari (2004). The model successfully simulates material behavior of sands in dynamic loading, including the pore pressure generation, liquefaction and post-liquefaction phenomena. It is a very attractive model for the industry due to a small number of parameters to be calibrated, mostly related to the usually available data in the design practice. Note that this model has currently only been tested and validated for 2D applications.

With the release of PLAXIS 2D/3D CONNECT Edition V20 Update 1 (January 2020), the PLAXIS User Defined Soil models are delivered with the PLAXIS installation. When enabling the Geotechnical SELECT Entitlement [GSE] when starting the PLAXIS application, this model becomes available in the Parameters tab when selecting "User defined" for the Material model.

With the release of PLAXIS 2D CONNECT Edition V22.02 (October 2022) the model is updated.