Nowadays, user-friendly object-oriented environments installed on powerful PCs allow three-dimensional nonlinear analyses to be performed in a matter of a few hours.
Reliable single-surface and multi-surface plastic models are available for the analysis of complex soil and rock materials.
Generalized algorithmic approaches are available for the initial state, time dependent and stability analyses, which allow a global assessment of the essential aspects of the mechanical behavior of a site before, during, and after constructions takes place.
Stabilized weak formulations make it possible to overcome locking phenomena associated with an incompressible or a dilatant plastic flow, typical of geomaterials. The same approach appears to stabilize pressure oscillations typical of consolidation problems, and to overcome the associated minimal time step size condition.
Together, these improvements permit a unified approach of geomechanical problems, which will soon or already does have an influence on geomechanical engineering practice (Z_Soil 2002).