How to design Pile Foundations with D-Foundations and SCIA

Using the functionality

You can use the functionality out-of-the-box with VIKTOR. VIKTOR provides an easy way to visualize input data, designs, and output results fast, just as the ability to conveniently integrate external software, such as SCIA and D-Foundations.

This is a snippet of the functionality’s code from the VIKTOR GitHub repository:

1@memoize 
2def run_dfoundations(foi_file_content: str, **kwargs) -> str: 
3  """Sends input file through D-Foundations and obtains output file""" 
4  foi_file = File.from_data(foi_file_content) 
5  dfoundations_analysis = DFoundationsAnalysis(input_file=foi_file) 
6  dfoundations_analysis.execute(timeout=300) 
7  fod_file = dfoundations_analysis.get_output_file(as_file=True) 
8  return fod_file.getvalue() 

This code snippet describes how a D-Foundations analysis is triggered in the application with 8 lines of Python code. The full application code can be found in the GitHub repository.

In the video, you can see how pile foundations are analysed in a VIKTOR application.

Pile foundation design in 5 steps

As you can see in the video, the process of analysing pile foundations consists of 5 steps.

1. Select CPT from an uploaded .GEF file. The available CPTs are visible in the MapView.

Select CPT

2. Analyse CPT The soil layout can be visualized in the GEF-tab. Next, the CPT can be analysed in the D-Foundations-tab, where the bearing capacity is obtained with respect to the depth of the CPT.

Analayze CPT with D-Foundations

3. Create a foundation. Here, a foundation geometry with an applied load can be created and visualized. The colour of the foundation is linked to the soil layout of the selected CPT in step 1.

Create pile foundation

4. Analyse foundation. In the SCIA result-tab, an analysis in SCIA is called to find the maximum reaction forces allowed to act on a single pile.

Analyze foundation with SCIA

5. Visualize combined results. The results from the D-Foundations- and SCIA-analyses can be combined to plot a required pile tip level for the defined foundation at the selected CPT location. The user can choose to go back to step 3 to re-analyse the foundation with a different pile length based on this result.

Visualize combined results

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