I am working on consolidation analysis of soft clay improved by columns. I wanted to transfer the load uniformly to the soil and column. Hence I am trying to create a plate. I have tried the following methods.
Creation of shell element and linking it with soil/column zones.
Creation of a zone and giving the properties of the plate.
Either way I am getting a negative pore pressure which is not possible ideally.
Can someone help me that what can be done to create a plate for a uniform load transfer and to observe the uniform displacement of the soil/column in consolidation analysis .
But I’m trying working on consolidation analysis. And here I want to know the displacement that can occur for the applied load. That displacement has to be uniform at the entire top surface of the model.
I guess then in this case the velocity or the displacement cant be applied I believe.
In other softwares, the uniform displacement at the top surface is been achieved as the load/stress is applied through a plate.
By definition, if you apply a displacement boundary condition on the top nodes, they will all deform by the same amount of prescribed deformation. The “rigid plate” approach is generally used when prescribing a load or stress on top of it, to make sure the displacements are more or less homogeneous.
So for performing the consolidation analysis, where I require a uniform displacement at the top surface together, am I supposed to apply velocity/disp or apply stress through rigid plate?
Applying disp seem the most straight forward way to go. You can then calculate the corresponding stresses on the top grid points using the method shown in the tutorials.
But I wanted to apply a constant stress and observe the displacement over a period of time?
In this case, how can the suggested method work? Any alternatives?
