Z_SOIL.PC : A  Windows-Based Tool offering a unified approach to numerical simulation of soil and rock mechanics, underground structures, excavations, soil-structure interaction and underground flow

• Main features of Z_SOIL.PC
• Soil Idealization
• Loads and Soil Conditions
• Documentation and Support
• Hardware/Software Requirements
• Examples of Z_SOIL.PC Applications
• New in Version 2009
  
• Z_SOIL.PC Story
• Consulting services
• Short course

Main Features of Z_SOIL.PC

FEATURES in Z_SOIL.PC, available since 1985, now under Windows NT, 2000 XP or VISTA

•  UNIFIED NUMERICS IN GEOTECHNICS & STRUCTURES,                    • 1000+ INSTALLATIONS WORLDWIDE.

• Solves all problems of geotechnical and structural daily practice in a matter of  hours

Z_SOIL.PC: A  Windows-based tool offering a unified approach to numerical simulation of soil, rock and structural mechanics, above and underground structures, excavations, soil-structure interaction, underground  flow, structural pushover and dynamic time integration analysis, and thermal analysis. Z_SOIL.PC is a continuously upgraded engineering software based on the finite-element method. The program has been used with great success in forensic analysis and design studies, covering without exception all possible scenarios encountered in the real world.

Z_SOIL.PC has been developped at Zace Services Ltd since 1982. The latest versions of Z_SOIL.PC were developed by a team composed of A.Truty, K.Podles, A.Urbanski, A.Wiktor and Th.Zimmermann, with contributions by A. Wroblewski and J.L. Sarf with research experience at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Cracow University of Technology, U.C.Berkeley,and Caltech.

Examples of Z_SOIL.PC Applications - Typical engineering problems that are being handled worldwide with Z_SOIL.PC, in foundation and earthwork construction, include tunnels, underground storage facilities, metro stations, mining, cut or fill in highways, railroads, dams, temporary and final retaining structures, water-front and excavation systems with complex excavation sequences, hydraulic structures, and buildings.

Express-Meta-Consulting-Worldwide Services - Zace Services Ltd and selected partners offer worldwide development and meta-consulting services( full data preparation and analysis of your problem except post- processing and reporting which you want to personalise). Partners also offer worldwide consulting services and assistance in all aspects of geotechnical and  civil   engineering, see http://www.zace.com.

Main Features of Z_SOIL.PC -  In particular, the program offers the following features:

Z_SOIL MENU

• Implemented in a menu-driven Integrated Computer Environment using the latest MS-Windows platforms (NT, 2000, XP,VISTA) : the management of data files and executables is handled by the user in a very easy and natural way through dialog boxes and menu options.

• Basic / advanced user configurations are available. • Import of data from Autocad and from or to Excel is possible.

Z_SOIL ANALYSES

• General speed-up with respect to previous version, • Automatic memory release to optimize computer use, • Data checking capabilities.

• Nonlinear small and large displacements.  Axi-symmetric, Plane strain, and 3D drivers offering single and 2-phase  analyses, with any combination of the following algorithmic options:

- Automatic evaluation of initial stress conditions including steady state flow: combination of gravity and initial-stresses allows an automatic reproduction of the most complex initial state conditions, including existing constructions.

- Stability analysis: through C-phi reduction and stress level algorithms lead to a reliable assessment of safety factors and failure surfaces for the most general problem geometries. Simpler and more general than usual sliding surface approaches. Possibility to analyze safety with respect to local material properties or features like contact surfaces.

- Ultimate load analysis and deformation analysis.

   -  Prestress conditions (anchors).

- Simulation of Excavation, construction stages, simulation of fill for cut and cover construction: can be combined with any sequence of drivers, allowing removal or addition of construction parts, loads, boundary conditions etc., unloading control capability in order to simulate 3-dimensional effects in 2D. Continuous safety assessment.

-  Consolidation, volumetric and deviatoric creep and swelling (time dependent processes).

- Flow, steady or transient, fully or partially saturated, with time dependent boundary conditions; fullly arbitrary flow conditions with free surface, seepage surfaces, as well as rain inflow, impermeable zones, coupled or uncoupled with solid deformation can easily be accounted for.

- Thermal/or moisture migration analysis: Transient thermal/or moisture migration analysis can be performed as a preprocessing in order to define temperature time-histories to be accounted for later in the mechanical analysis.

-  Dynamic time integration and Pushover analysis for structures

•  Skyline,  or  new sparse solvers,  tested up to 350 000 DOFs for symmetric stiffness matrices and 200 000 .DOFs for nonsymmetric ones

•  Stabilized finite element formulation for 2-phase media­­ without time-step restrictions.

Easy-to-use integrated 2D/3D Z_SOIL PRE-PROCESSOR

• Interactive quasi-automatic mesh generation and profile optimizer for the finite-element discretization allowing to generate a mesh of up to more than 100'000 elements in a matter of minutes.

•  Unified menu system for 2D &3D, under C++, • Macromodeling tools allowing for a speed-up factor of upto 10 in complex 3D mesh generations, • 2D/3D Meshing tools

•  Automatic element split, • Data super-elements, •  Macros, •  Autocad & Excel compatibility, •  Undo, • Overlaid meshes capability

­Z_SOIL POST-PROCESSOR

­•  A fully Windows compatible fully integrated 2D/3D post-processor with many capabilities like, improved stress recoveries, cross-sections, time-histories completing the existing color plots, isolines, units management,  etc...

• Excel compatibility , •  Recording & playing macros, •  Improved selection options

• Units management : although any set of coherent units can be used, the program offers a  convenient units management capability for increased comfort.

Soil Idealization

Constitutive Models - Z_SOIL.PC uses the most robust numerical algorithms to simulate nonlinear, time dependent, soil behavior, according to the Tresca, Mohr-Coulomb w. dilatancy cut-off, Rankine, Drucker-Prager-Cap, and Cam-clay models for soil, multi-laminate for layered media and schists, Hoek-Brown models for rock, Menétrey-Willam (with softening) for concrete and Biot models for the consolidation and two-phase problems, monotonic ECP-Hujeux model for complex soil behaviours; user defined models capability for continuum, user defined fiber model for beams. The program can efficiently simulate any types of load and soil stress conditions, for example: • Gravity fields and initial stress conditions       • Water table and water pressures under steady state or transient conditions, including time dependent boundary conditions • Drained and undrained soil conditions • Explicit definition of excavation/construction sequences • Imposed displacement fields • Concentrated and distributed loads applied at the boundaries of the soil medium • Unloading control for convergence analysis in tunnels • infinite or semi-infinite media.

•  User models- Users can introduce their own constitutive model.

Element library - The nonlinear finite element scheme incorporated in Z_SOIL.PC uses 2D, 3D and axi-symmetric elements which optimally represent the nonlinear constitutive soil models and overcome locking phenomena often associated with incompressible and dilatant  behaviour. Structural elements complete the element library, including linear and nonlinear beams, with hinges, flexibility based nonlinear beams (allowing 1 element /beam), shells (including reinforced concrete), with possible hinges, membrane, geotextile,  reinforcement and cable behaviours. Finally, infinite media and a new frictional contact mortar and node to segment interface elements (permeable or impermeable ) are available for single or two-phase media. These elements offer the flexibility to model any configuration of the soil profile.

Documentation and support - Practicing geotechnical engineers with little formal experience in numerical modeling or plasticity theory can learn how to use Z_SOIL.PC in a very short time using the "user-friendly" automated environment of the program. In addition, the user will find:

A user interface with beginner/advanced entry level • A fully interactive online help and manual with indexed access • A User's Manual which includes information on program execution, data entry screens and extensive documentation of the analysis options. • In-depth tutorials on how to use the program. •A theoretical section which contains unique details on the algorithms • An extensive list of benchmark problems. • A selection of representative case studies.

• HOTLINE (for customers only): zsoil@zace.com

• Short courses every month

• Assistance, consulting  and META-CONSULTING services

Hardware/Software Requirements – Pentium or dual-core processor. System should include 40GB or more disk space • MS-Windows  2000, XP or Vista, 1GB RAM memory (preferably 2-4 GB), at least, 1024x768 screen resolution.

New in Version 2009

1. Modeling large foundation rafts in 3D
- piles are modeled as beam elements discretized independently on surrounding continuum
- Mohr-Coulomb friction law is applied
- additional pile foot interface is created to model pull-out effect
- redesigning piles is very fast
- option fully automatic working both at the macro-modeling and finite element levels

2. Hardening Soil/Hardening Soil-small soil model for modeling deep excavations and soil-structure interaction problems
- small strain stiffness of soils is reporduced by HS-small version
- excessive heaving of the bottom of excavation is eliminated
- nice predictions of the influence of excavations on neigbouring structures in urban areas

3. Parametric studies enabling variation of a selected set of material properties to be varied

4. Automatic inheriting of contact strength properties from adjacent continum

5. Automatic mapping of complex geological layers defined through boreholes on 3D meshes

6. Orthotropic elastic model for shells

7. Directional filtering of added masses in structural dynamics

8. Wood-Armer stress resultants for plates/shells

9. Steps towards parallel computing on multi-core PC platforms
- Z_SOIL v2009 enables running larger 3D models than version v2007 (300 000 DOFS for symmetric stiffness matrices and 200 000 DOFS for nonsymmetric ones)
- Z_SOIL v2009 makes use of multicore platforms (Core Duo or Core Quad processors)

Typical engineering problems that are easily handled with Z_SOIL.PC in foundation and earthwork construction include, tunnels, cut or fill in highways, railroads, dams, temporary and final retaining structures, water-front and excavation systems and hydraulic structures.

Geneva        Sweden        Loetschberg        Iran

Z_SOIL.PC Story

Z_SOIL v1 came out in early 1986 after four years of development and testing.It was backed by over 30 years of experience in the field of numerical analysis, finite elements and soil plasticity. Z_SOIL.PC v1 was developed at Zace Services Ltd under the supervision of Drs Th.Zimmermann, B. Dendrou & C. Rodriguez, with research experience at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, U.C. Berkeley, Caltech, and Purdue University. Over 40 people have since then significantly contributed to the development of successive versions, and several are still part of the team. Since 1993, a close collaboration with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, and several major swiss engineering companies  has been successfully developed. More recently collaborations have been initiated with researchers at Cracow Institute of Technology, Moscow State University of Civil Engineering and more collaborations are being organized. Z_SOIL has over one thousand installations and a worldwide distribution, it is in daily use in a number of engineering offices to solve simplest and most complex geotechnical and structural problems, and in many universities as teaching tool. Several custom versions of the program have been developed upon requests from customers and pilot-versions include new constitutive models,as for rock mechanics with crack propagation simulation, multiphase dynamics for the simulation of liquefaction, and moisture migration.

Consulting services

Zace Services Ltd and partners in the development of Z_SOIL offer worldwide consulting services and assistance in all aspects of geotechnical engineering. Contact adresses are :
 
 


Partner Name	Address	Phone	Contact person
Bonnard et Gardel Ing. Conseils SA	Av. de Cour 61, CH-1007 Lausanne	+41 21 618 11 11  Fax +41 21 618 11 22	Dr. Roelfstra
CSD Ing. Conseils SA	Ch. de Montelly 78, cp60, CH-1000 Lausanne 20	+41 21 620 70 00  Fax +41 21 620 70 01	Mr. Gindroz
GeoMod Ing. Conseils SA	Av. des Jordils 5 , CH-1006 Lausanne	+41 21 311 34 30  Fax +41 21 311 34 29	Dr. Commend
Emch + Berger AG	Gartenstrasse 1, CH-3001 Bern	+41 31 385 63 52  Fax +41 31 385 61 12	Mr. Lerch
GEOS Ing. Conseils SA	Route de l'aeroport 1, CH-1215 Geneve	+41 22 309 30 60  Fax +41 22 309 30 70	Mr. Marche
GVH Ing. Conseils SA	Rue de la Paix 30, CH-2730 Tramelan	+41 32 487 46 36  Fax +41 32 487 61 32	Mr. Bisetti
Jean-Luc Sarf Ing EPFL	Rue du Lignolat 48, CH-1170 Aubonne	+41 21 616 01 63  Fax +41 21 616 01 64	Mr. Sarf
Schneller, Ritz und Partner AG	Nordstrasse 16, CH-3900 Brig	+41 27 922 02 00  Fax +41  27 922 02 05	Mr.C.Carron
Stucky Ing. Conseils SA	Rue du Lac 33, CH-1020 Renens	+41 21 637 15 13  Fax +41 21 637 15 08	Dr.C.Cekerevac
Lab. of Simulation in Solid Mechanics, LSMS-EPFL	CH-1015 Lausanne	+41 21 693 24 50  Fax + 41 21 693 63 40	Mr. Sarf
Lab. of Rock Mechanics, LMR-EPFL	CH-1015 Lausanne	+41 21 693 23 23	Dr. Labiouse
Lab. of Soil Mechanics, LMS-EPFL	CH-1015 Lausanne	+41 21 693 23 14	Prof. L.Laloui

In addition, software development and data preparation services are offered by:


Partner Name	Address	Phone	Contact person
Zace Services Ltd.	Case Postale 2, CH-1015 Lausanne	+41 21 802 46 05	Dr.Th. Zimmermann
		Fax	e_mail
		+41 21 802 46 06	zimmermann@zace.com

Zace Services Ltd offers introductory short courses  several time a year.