GGU-SETTLE: Define triangular foundations (Ex. 2)

After defining the constrained modulus profile distribution throughout the triangle mesh, you can enter the triangular foundations. The definition of triangular foundations is different to that of rectangular foundations, as a much more flexible input is possible. Input of triangular foundations is very similar to the definition of constrained modulus profiles. If the check box "Convert rectangular foundations to triangular foundations" was activated when changing from rectangular foundations to triangular foundations, the foundations' corner points and triangle mesh are transferred directly

If you have started again from scratch, define the corner points of the triangular foundations according to Table 4 in the system data (see Section “System data (Ex. 1)”). You can do this with the mouse, e.g. For this, select the menu item "Triangular foundations/Define nodes". Now click on the corner points of the triangular foundation with the mouse. If the same system is to be calculated as in Section “Example 1: Analysis of rectangular foundations“, these are then the four corner points of both foundations. If you define a new triangular foundation corner point with the mouse, this node will be assigned the values given in the menu item "Triangular foundations/Default values".

These default values can then be individually adjusted using the menu item "Triangular foundations/Edit nodes (individually)".

Alternatively to clicking with the mouse, you can enter the values in tabular form. To do this, select the menu item "Triangular foundations/Edit nodes (via table)". The pre-existing data from the conversion from rectangular foundations can be seen in the following dialog box:

Enter the values of the dialog box. You have thus defined 8 nodes of the foundation mesh. Now you must only connect the nodes to a mesh. For this, select the menu item "Triangular foundations/Manual mesh" and click on three points of the foundation mesh. The triangular foundation mesh should then look like this: