With the release of PLAXIS 2D 2023.1, the tunnel designer has been updated to include the Cable bolt element when defining the reinforcements. After adding reinforcements to a tunnel segment, the user can now select from a new drop-down menu called Element type in the property tree of the Reinforcements tab. A choice is given between "Cable bolt" or "Rock bolt". The former uses the new Cable bolt element, the latter still uses the approach of previous releases, namely the Embedded beam element.

With the Cable bolts now available in the Tunnel Designer it makes it much easier to define reinforcement patterns involving cable bolts, but also to change the properties of these patterns, like length, spacing or number of cable bolts, allowing the geometry changes to regenerate with the click of button.

Some objects and bolt configuration options within the Tunnel Designer have been renamed, fully changing the command and scripting signature which affect the backward compatibility of scripts created for PLAXIS versions prior to PLAXIS 2D 2023.1.