Best geotechnical software

[freequo]

I was wondering what is the best and easiest to learn software for FEM/FDM analysis in geotechnics?
There is Plaxis which has lots of advantages, especially regarding Rocsciences Phase 2D. I would put Geostudio somewhere in between that two. But is there something else.
Of course, this three mentioned works with FEM. Other known is FLAC (FDM).
There are some other softwares like Soilvision, GEO5, MIDAS... but which is the best, and simplest.
Best regards
freequo

[cappotchi]

Hi
PLAXIS the simplest and gives acceptable results, but FLAC more complicated and gives good results because most of the research found that the FD method more efficient than the FE in soil
Best regards
Cappotchi

[student71]

You should try FIDES, it is simple. And you can find cracked version on civilea, use search engine.
But i also think that FD is better then FE and FIDES is FE like PLAXIS.

[ynopum]

...which is the best, and simplest ?

Go directly for ABAQUS.

(the answer depends on the question) :hunter:

[freequo]

I would rather start to learn Abaqus, like ynopum said, then go back to FIDES. Don't have good experience with it.
But how exact are they? I mean, do they solve PDE defined for that problem, or they're doing some simplification.

[geocivil]

Hi

PLAXIS is very robust and user friendly software when compared to others. but still some others (like FLAC, DIANA, ABAQUS, MIDAS GTS, Phase2D) have advantages.

Plaxis have two different softwares for 2D and 3D analysis and launched new 2010 series few days ago. but Plaxis 3D has not a dynamic solver yet. Material library is one of the richest and easisest to understand for use for the newbees.

FLAC ITASCA also has two different softwares for 2D and 3D analysis. It is not a FEM software. that may be an advantage in some cases and disadvantage in another case. 2D gui (graphical user interface) is easy to use but when dealing with 3D you have to know about the commands to model or need to have some extra meshing operator and CAD program to make it abit easier.

PHASE 2D is not as good as for soil modelling since its main area is for rocks and underground structures. I am using both two (Plaxis and Phase2) of them but not satisfied with the results in soils in Phase2D. It is powerful in rocks since you can model cracks and discontinuties with special interface elements.

TNO DIANA is one of the best that you can model whatever you want but still needs some experience for the use of DIANA logic itself. I mean it also uses two gui s iDIANA and FX+ and FX+ makes the modelling much easier. you can both model 2D and 3D in the same software.

MIDAS GTS becomes powerful with DIANA nonlinear solver but has only linear dynamic MIDAS solver. It is also easy to use and powerful if you dealed any kind of 3D software.

I dont know about ABAQUS since I havent used it. The general idea is that it is also powerful.

I hope it helps.