By Paul Uno, Director – Engineering Training Institute Australia (ETIA)
Before the days of computers, most structural and geotechnical calculations were done by hand using calculators (or a slide rule!). The only consolation was that when you used the formulas, you understood the basic principles that you were applying and you had an idea of what the answer should be (within a certain range). These days, the engineering design calculation process is mainly carried out using computers.
Engineers involved in infrastructure work are often confronted with projects involving roads, bridges, power transmission and communication structures. All these areas involve the design of foundations and geotechnical work.
The grandfather of soil mechanics, Karl von Terzaghi, produced incredibly powerful formulas in 1943 to provide engineers with the ability to determine the ultimate bearing capacity of all soil types. He himself developed his formulas based upon the brilliant work of Prandtl, in Germany twenty years earlier. New and improved bearing capacity formulas with modified bearing factors (e.g. Nc, Nq and Nγ) were introduced in the 1960’s and 1970’s by people such as Meyerhof, Vesic and Hansen.
Even the basic Winkler ‘beam on elastic foundations’ model, whilst a powerful tool to design foundations, had its shortcomings. It accounted for the soil reaction to the loading above but did not allow for the shearing action of soil adjacent to the foundation, that was also affected by the applied loading. This anomaly was corrected in the 1950’s by a Russian engineer named, Pasternak, who introduced a shear layer into the model.
The basic soil models used back then are still applicable today as well as more advanced models (e.g. Drucker-Prager and Cam-Clay models – just to name a few).
Currently, there are software programs in the marketplace (e.g. Fine GEO5) that can do these foundation calculations faster and with more accuracy than we could all those years ago. You can model the soils to be elastic, plastic or elasto-plastic.
When designing for a potential slip circle failure plane, an engineer would have to choose a random point above and away from the side where the failure would occur, then proceed to work out all the forces that would cause slip and all the forces that would resist slip. If the resistance value, divided by the slip instability value, exceeded the safety factor, then the process was deemed to be satisfied. Various methods were available to carry out this process (e.g. Swedish, Bishop, Janbu, Spencer, Sarma, Morgenstern-Price). The only problem is that there could have been another failure plane (i.e. circular, non-circular or planar) that would produce a factor of safety less than one that had not been checked (due to the amount of time required to carry out the analysis by hand using any one of the methods mentioned above).
Geotechnical software programs such as the Fine GEO5 “Slope Stability” analyse hundreds of points above an embankment or hill side cutting to locate and determine the lowest factor of safety – and it does this in a matter of seconds! Fine GEO5 Software have over 35 programs including Spread Footing, Pile Design, Retaining Walls and Sheeting Design, Rock Stability, Masonry and Cantilever Wall, Ground Loss and Settlement, and more.
Fine GEO5 even has a Finite Element Analysis (FEM) program that can analyse the most complex combination of soil layers and loads. Fine GEO5 are always developing its suite of programs and recently have released a new program that produces geotechnical soil log reports (a boon to geologists and geotechnical engineers).
In 2025, Fine GEO5 (based in Europe) converted their whole process to a Cloud based system which eliminates the need for design engineers to purchase hard keys (i.e. USB’s).
The Fine GEO5 company allows engineers to either purchase individual programs as perpetual licences or one year subscription licenses (at only 40 per cent of the full cost). An even better option is to purchase packages that incorporate many of the individual programs, but at a much cheaper overall cost – in some cases up to 50 per cent saving compared to buying the programs individually.
From 23-25 July 2025, ETIA will be promoting Fine GEO5 software at the 2025 Geology Conference in Brisbane, QLD. At our stand, we will be demonstrating how to use GEO5 software to design various geotech structures and other geotechnical areas such as Retaining Walls, Pile Foundations, Slope Stability, Soil Laboratory reports and a whole range of other topics.
ETIA also conduct full day training courses via Zoom. These topics include: Residential Slabs and Footings Design, Shallow Foundations Design, as well as Slope Stability, Retaining Walls, and Pile Foundations Design. A brand-new ETIA workshop being introduced in 2025, is the “Transmission and Communication Towers (including PowerPoles) Design Workshop”. This area is a key part of infrastructure in the 21st century.
Engineers who attend our ETIA workshops (via Zoom or Face to Face) are entitled to a ten per cent discount on all Fine GEO5 purchases. This offer is only available for purchases made via our Australian ETIA website (Note: This offer is not available if purchases are made direct to Fine Software in Europe).
Visit www.etia.net.au to see the full list of courses, workshops, dates and locations, as well as the Fine GEO5 software programs available in 2025.
