Geotechnical engineering is a branch of civil engineering concerned with the engineering properties of earth materials. Geotechnical engineers are concerned with the properties of rocks and soil below the ground in designing foundations for houses and bridges. Computer programs help designers with important and useful designing tools. Geo Studio is a product is a geotechnical modeling suite. In this paper, we will the pros and cons of the advent of using computer software in geotechnical engineering.
Computer Software and Geotechnical Engineering
Geo Studio is integrated software used for running the leading suite of geotechnical modeling software products like: SLOPE/W, TEMP/W, AIR/W, and QUAKE/W. This software is used to primarily analyze the stability of the earth but can also be used to build numerical models that are hard to construct geometrically.
Geo Studio has some features like multiple analysis, meshing, network licensing improvements, and updated sketch text. The bit has also some AIR/W products to help users increase the type of problems that can be analyzed to ease geotechnical problems.
The use of Computer Aided Teaching in Geotechnical Engineering has been developed to operate in windows providing the user with greater flexibility with regard to output and input. The software has the advantage of checking user changes to mesh element properties if the mesh is regenerated. Most software is cheaper nowadays and easier to use. Some of this software includes XSTABL, GSLOPE, and SLIDE. XSTABL is a DOS-based program that gives the good graphical output.
It is easy to input data and has a good help feature and it is relatively cheap. GSLOPE is windows based and user friendly. The only disadvantage is that it is roughly expensive. SLIDE is a complex and comprehensive program that can do detailed problems and can also be used to back-analysis a problem that has failed. SLIDE also has different ways of analyzing a slope. The disadvantage of the software is that it is expensive.
Like any other program, these programs cannot be expected to fully model the true physical conditions of a project. The software is expensive and hard to understand especially for beginners.
Conclusions
Computer-aided teaching in geotechnical engineering operates in both Windows and DOS operating systems. Students’ learning and success are dependent on good quality software. Different software is available in the market most of which are user-friendly. The main disadvantage of software is the prohibitive price.