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RELEASE
NOTICE!
Soilvision Systems Ltd. Announces The Release Of
SVFlux - Saturated / Unsaturated Automated 2D / 3D Finite Element Seepage
Modeling
Software
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To visit our Web Site and view our software
products,
please go to http://www.soilvision.com
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FEATURES
Fully automatic mesh generation
Fully automatic
mesh refinement
AutoCAD (TM) style CAD input
Select soil properties from a
laboratory database of over 6000 soils
Input 3D problems as surfaces and
layers using survey data
Significant reduction in convergence problems over
conventional software
Visualize results using contour, vector, pathline, or
isosurface plots
Introductory pricing currently
available!
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Soilvision Systems Ltd. Announces The Release Of SV
Flux - Saturated / Unsaturated Automated 2D / 3D Finite Element Seepage Modeling
Software
Saskatoon, SK, May 2001
The real world is three-dimensional. Therefore, if
a seepage software package is to let users model a wide range of problems, it
must offer 3D capabilities. In addition, users demand quick, easy-to-obtain
answers to seepage problems. The release of SVFlux, takes an enormous leap in
functionality over currently available software to reach this goal. These users
can create and analyze models in 2D or full 3 D without extensive laboratory testing
programs or the need to worry about building a finite element mesh. The model’s
solution is dependent upon the accuracy of the soil properties provided. SVFlux
bundled with SoilVision provides a sophisticated database system for managing
your soils information as well as access to an unsaturated soil laboratory
database on over 6000 soils.
Fully automatic mesh generation, mesh refinement,
and time-step refinement (for transient problems) allows the soil professional
to focus on the big picture. Conventional seepage software requires the user to
spend hours creating a finite element mesh without knowledge of the location of
critical zones. Convergence problems would then disallow a reasonable solution
to the problem because elements in the critical zones were too large.
Furthermore, refinement of the mesh must be performed manually and are not only
difficult but the user is given no indication as to the location where the mesh
needs to be refined.
The SVFlux solver alleviates user concern with the
convergence of the solution. SVFlux allows the user to specify the exact
accuracy level required by the output. If the user desires his output to be
accurate to within 1 cm of water head, that is simply specified to the SVFlux
software. The solver will then automatically refine the mesh in critical zones
until the desired accuracy level is achieved.
2D Model Creation
Creation of the seepage model
becomes a relatively simple process since the user is not required to describe
the mesh. 2D problems are simply described as regions, boundary conditions, and
soil properties. Care was taken in the design of the CAD interface to allow
user’s to describe geometry in a manner similar to the world standard AutoCAD
(TM) software. Grids and several snapping methods allow geometry to be specified
in a quick and accurate fashion. Model geometry may be output on .WMF, .EMF, or
.DXF formats.
Boundary conditions may be specified as either head
or flux conditions. In addition, free-form equations may be specified based on
time or head to describe boundary conditions.
An accurate description of soil properties is
required for accurate model results. SVFlux provides the user with a small
database of unsaturated seepage soil properties to draw from. For the
uncompromising user, the SoilVision knowledge-based database software system may
be coupled with SVFlux to provide the user with access to unsaturated
experimental data on over 6000 soils. If you only have a grain-size distribution
for your soil, SoilVision will allow you to estimate your seepage soil
properties using any of 20 published estimation methods. Variance of soil
properties may be significant for unsaturated soils. To account for this,
SoilVision allows groups of soils to be pulled from the database and plotted.
The user may then focus on reasonable variance of the seepage model based on
varying soil properties.
3D Model Creation
Creation of a 3D seepage model
is designed to replicate the manner in which geological strata was laid down; as
surfaces and layers. “We have noticed consultants making increased use of
digitized survey data in describing the topology of their problems. Our desire
with SV Flux was to allow consultants to make use of this digitized data to
describe non-uniform and complex topological features.” comments Murray
Fredlund, SoilVision System’s President. Once surfaces are input, they may be
combined to form layers with separate boundary conditions possible for the sides
and surfaces of each layer.
An additional model creation feature allows
placement of a topological drawing behind the drawing grid of the CAD workspace.
This allows the user a top-down view of the geometry of the ground-level surface
in which elevations may be accurately mapped onto the surface layer. AutoCAD
(TM) style functionality also allows the visibility of surfaces to be turned on
or off according to how the user wants to visualize the model.
In addition to the many features implemented into
model creation, SVFlux makes use of database functionality to record your
models. The database functionality allows your consulting firm to build your own
library of seepage models and soil properties. As the size of the model database
grows, so does you efficiency as new models may be created by copying geometry
and soil properties from previously described models. Problem are also tagged
with GIS descriptors to allow viewing of the location of your seepage model with
ArcView.
Visualization
Visualization of your problem
results may be accomplished in two ways. The standard software allows contour
and vector plots of pressure and head on any region (2D) or on any slice through
a 3D problem. 3D visualization of the generated grid is also possible. Flux
sections through 2D problems may be accomplished simply and efficiently. All
plots may be printed or output to .WMF or .EMF formats.
Sophisticated high-power visualization of 2D and 3D
results may be accomplished using our visualization module. The visualization
module allows extreme control over coloring options and additional plotting
features such as pathlines, cut-aways, isosurfaces, and animations.
System requirements
SV Flux runs under Windows
95/98, NT 4.0, Me, and 2000. The recommended hardware configuration is 128M
bytes of RAM, 30 M bytes hard disk space and 16-bit color graphics.
SoilVision Systems Ltd. has it’s headquarters in
Saskatoon, Canada. The privately held firm was initially founded in 1997 by
Murray Fredlund, Ph.D. as a software developer specializing in knowledge-based
database products. Their pioneer product was a knowledge-based database system
entitled SoilVision which was used for the estimation of unsaturated soil
properties. In 1999 the company released version 2.0 of their popular SoilVision
database software which was geared as a data warehouse for consulting engineers.
Most recently the company introduced SVFlux, a soil seepage finite element tool
for the graphical modeling of complex seepage problems in two or three
dimensions.
