Material Regions

Subdivide the domain into regions and assign a material to each.

Material regions are closed polylines that partition the external boundary into zones of different soil. Each region is assigned one material, and the solver uses the region a slice base falls in to look up shear strength and unit weight. Regions that share an edge represent a stratigraphic contact.

Drawing a material region

1. Click Add Material Boundary in the Geometry panel.
2. Place vertices on the canvas.
3. Click Close Current Material Boundary to close the region, then Done Material Boundary when finished.

A closed material region requires at least 3 vertices.

Assigning a material

Each region must reference a defined material. To assign one:

1. Right-click the region and choose Assign Material.
2. Pick a material from the submenu.

You can also use the Assign Material edit tool and click the target region. The properties pane shows the currently assigned material, with its color swatch, for the selected region.

When the project uses the Soil Profile, a click assigns the Soil Profile region under the cursor, on the Geometry and Results tabs alike, and the analysis regions take their materials from the profile.

Relationship to the external boundary

Material regions lie inside the external boundary; geometry outside the boundary is clipped away. Lay regions out so they tile the domain without gaps — any part of the domain not covered by a region has no defined material there.

Clipping keeps a material boundary's name, lock, visibility, selectability, snap and style, and its id for the terminal, when you later edit the External Boundary, undo or redo, switch scenarios or reopen the project. When the External Boundary cuts a boundary into several pieces, the first piece keeps its name and the others are named name (2), name (3) and so on, each with the original's settings. A boundary that lies wholly outside the External Boundary is removed; one drawn wholly outside is refused with The Material Boundary lies outside the External Boundary.

Editing

Use Edit Vertices mode to move, insert, or delete vertices, or Move Boundary / Delete Boundary to relocate or remove an entire region. Clear Material Boundaries removes all regions at once.

Related

• External Boundary
• Weak Layers — thin seams with their own material.