In Situ stresses can be established using gravity activation, field stresses, or the K0 procedure, which consider the volumetric water content function to determine effective stresses in the unsaturated zone. Pore-water pressures can be defined using a variety of sources.
The coupled stress and pore-water pressure formulation can handle complex analyses with saturated or unsaturated soils. This is useful for construction sequences involving fill placement, excavation, and soil-structure interaction.
Unloading or loading activities can be simply and accurately modelled, including submerged fill placement, dam and tailings embankment construction, deep excavations, and open pit mine construction. Pore-water pressure changes can be incorporated by defining the initial and final water conditions.
The stress redistribution algorithm is capable of doing stress correction for any material model with a failure criteria. Strength Reduction Stability is also available as an alternative to the limit equilibrium stability method.
Stress and deformation analysis
SIGMA/W is a powerful finite element software product for modelling stress and deformation in soil, rock, and structures. SIGMA/W analyses may range from simple linear elastic simulations to soil-structure interaction problems with nonlinear material models.
SIGMA/W enables you to analyze a broad class of problems in the civil and mining sectors due to its extensive material model library and rigorous formulation. With SIGMA/W, you can analyze complex consolidation problems, stability of soil and rock slopes, soil-structure interaction problems, and much more