4 Best Free Geotechnical Software For Windows

Here is a list of best free geotechnical software for Windows. The geotechnical field is a part of the civil engineering that concerns with the behavior of earth materials like soil, rocks, etc. It is used in various types of on-ground and underground construction to estimate the behavior of surroundings and earth materials over a structure. In order to estimate and measure the different aspects of earth’s material over a structure or behavior of different types of structure itself, you need these free geotechnical software.

Using these geotechnical software, you can perform various types of analysis on materials and structures to find better solutions. In most software, you can manually draw structures, select different materials, set materials properties, etc., and then perform analysis. In some software, you can also import pre-built designs and quickly perform tasks like analysis, pre-processing, post-processing, etc. To manually draw structure designs, these software offer tools like beam, cable, strip, soil surface, etc. Apart from analysis, you can also perform various geotechnical calculations through these software. In the response of analysis and calculations, these software provide output graphs and values. In resultant graphs, you can view bearing strength of the structure, intensity of different forces over the structure, and other important results. These software also let you save the output in XLS, PDF, CSV, and more formats.

All of these software are developed for professionals, hence they are not that simple to operate especially for novice users. Thus, I recommend users to check out user manuals of these software before using them.

My Favorite Geotechnical Software For Windows:

ADONIS is my favorite software because it can be used to perform both linear and non-linear analysis. Plus, it offers many analysis methods and provides both tabular and graphical results. Its user interface is also quite clean and simple that also helps a lot.

You can also check out lists of best free Bridge Design, Structural Calculation, and Structural Engineering software for Windows.

ADONIS

ADONIS is a free geotechnical software for Windows. It is a powerful geotechnical software for geoengineers using which they can perform linear and non-linear analysis of geotechnical problems. The good thing about this software is that it comes with a fully graphical interface that allows both the pre and post processing of models interactive. To perform the analysis, you can manually generate simple models in it. To create complex models, it provides a mesh generator that allows you to create complex finite meshes. To understand more about the designed models, you can use post-processing visual results in the form of contour and deformation plots.

Main Features:

Command Panel: It is the primary panel of this software as it contains all the necessary tools through which you can draw a structure, perform pre-processing, perform post-processing, and other important operations. Some important tools of this software are Geometry (to create geometrical designs), Assign Material (to assign different materials to different parts of a model), Initial Conditions (to add stress, velocity, force, and other initial conditions to your model), Calculate (it lets you calculate elastic, step, fos, etc.), and more.
Structure Type: Using it, you can quickly add beam, cable, strip, etc., to your model.
Mesh: It lets you add both 3-node or 6-node triangular meshes to your model.

Additional Features:

Script: It allows you to enter your own scripts so that you can generate your own solutions according to your models.
Export Image: Using this feature, you can export both the pre-processed and post-processed model designs in PNG, JPG, BMP, and more image formats.

Final Thoughts:

It is one of the simplest yet powerful geotechnical software that allows you to create structural models and analyze various geotechnical characteristics.

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PSlope

PSlope is another free geotechnical software for Windows. As its name suggests, it is primarily used to analyze and solve problems related to slopes. In this software, you can either manually create slope designs or import slope designs in DXF file format. In order to draw a slope structure or design, this software offers various drawing tools. Apart from designing the slope, you can also define types of materials (soil, rock, etc.) present on slope, define the internal properties of materials, and perform some geotechnical calculations. After performing the analysis and calculations, you can save all the results in a DOC file.

Features of PSlope:

Draw: It is a menu that provides all necessary slope and structure making tools such as soil surface, soil layer, line loads, phreatic layer, add grid, tangent line, etc.
Utilities: Using it, you can easily move different elements of slope structure, draw axis, draw dimensions, and add text to your model.
Calculations: It allows you to perform various geotechnical slope calculations using methods such as compute by one point, compute by circle, compute by tangent to line, and compute by block line.
General: It is a menu that provides two important tools namely Calculation Parameters and Soil Material. Calculation parameters tool lets you select different methods of analysis and allows you to specify material parameters like cohesion, friction angle, seismic coefficient, etc. Soil Material tool allows you to set soil layer data like soil color, bulk unit weight, saturation gamma, etc.

Limitations:

This geotechnical software can only be used to analyze and solve slopes related problems.

Final Thoughts:

It is another really good geotechnical software if you need to analyze and find solutions to slope based structures.

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SO-Foundation

SO-Foundation is yet another free geotechnical software for Windows. This geotechnical software is primarily used to calculate the bearing capacity of shallow columns. It is also quite good software to estimate the failure stress of columns so that you can create the correct column designs according to structure requirements. In order to calculate the shear failure of columns or foundations, it provides various methods namely Eurocode, Hansen, Meyerhof, Vesic, and Terzaghi.

To help you perform different tests and understand the meaning of obtained results, this software provides two handy manuals namely Scientific manual and Verification manual on its interface.

Features of SO-Foundation:

Layers: In this section, you need to define all the necessary values and parameters related to a column or foundation like Thickness, Bounds, γ, ϕ, Rigidity, Pressure, and more.
Pressure Isobars: According to column parameters, this feature generates a visual representation of pressure at different parts of the column and its surroundings.
Bearing capacity: It generates multiple graphs showing bearing capacity based on different algorithms like Eurocode, Hansen, Vesic, etc.
Export: After calculating the shear failure, bearing capacity, and other geotechnical parameters, you can use this feature to export the result in the PDF format.

Limitations:

In this demo version of this software, you will face some limitations like limited metric unit range, watermark on output graphs, disabled export to Excel option, etc.

Final Thoughts:

It is another free and powerful geotechnical software that you can use to find out bearing capacity and shear failure of columns.

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CRISP2D

CRISP2D is one more free geotechnical software for Windows. This software is also known as the Critical State Soil Mechanics Program. It provides finite element analysis program along with two separate preprocessing and post-processing windows to perform different types of geotechnical analysis. A handy spreadsheet utility is also provided by it using which you can store, export, and print results. The good thing about this software is that it can be used in various types of geotechnical problems like analysis of footing, soil nailing, geotextile reinforcement, slope stability, borehole stability, etc.

Main Elements Of CRISP2D:

Pre-Processing: In it, you can manually create a basic structure, specify all the properties of all the elements used in the structure, create mesh profile of your structure, and define various stress test conditions. Basically, it provides all necessary elements through which you can quickly create and analyze the structure.
Post-Processing: In it, you can use some advanced analysis techniques like Drained, Undrained, Fully-Coupled, etc. Plus, global visualization tools to provide output in the form of Contour plots and Deformation plots are also available in it. Other important tools like a comprehensive set of graphing tools, displaced mesh plots, yield status plots, principal stress and strain plots, automatic legend for all plots, and more are also present in it.
Graphing Module: In it, you get two different graph plotting methods. The first method lets you plot graphs using a set of sampling points to find out the spatial variation across the mesh. The second method lets you plot graphs using individual sampling points to track changes occurred in a particular variable during different stages of analysis.

After performing analysis and finding out the correct solutions of geotechnical problems, you can use Printing and Report Generator features to print and save all the input values, output results, graphs, etc., in PDF, XLS, and in different graphing formats.