Soil Profile Boundaries

When you use the Soil Profile option, you must define the profile boundaries (i.e. representing material or other boundaries) within the Profile Extents. There are two possible methods of defining soil profile boundaries:

• Boundaries can be explicitly defined using the Add Soil Profile Boundary option.
• Boundaries can be interpolated from borehole data using the Borehole Editor dialog.

You can use either, or both methods together, as described below.

ADD SOIL PROFILE BOUNDARY

With this option, the coordinates of boundaries are explicitly entered by the user, either graphically or by typing or importing coordinates. See the Add Soil Profile Boundary topic.

BOREHOLE EDITOR

With this option, the user must define one or more (vertical) boreholes, which define the location of material layers. The profile boundaries are then automatically generated by Slide2, using one of several available interpolation methods. See the Borehole Editor topic.

USING BOTH EXPLICIT AND INTERPOLATED PROFILE BOUNDARIES

The two methods of defining profile boundaries are not mutually exclusive. You may use both options to generate boundaries for the same model.

For example:

• A typical case for using both methods would be when the boreholes are used to generate the sub-surface profile boundaries, and the ground surface is explicitly defined using the Add Soil Profile Boundary option.
• OR you may need to use Add Soil Profile Boundary to add some additional detail to the soil profile, which is not generated by the borehole interpolation.

TIP: when you combine explicit profile boundaries and interpolated profile boundaries, you should always double-check the model to ensure that material regions and property assignments have been correctly defined.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PROFILE BOUNDARIES AND MATERIAL BOUNDARIES?

The distinction between Profile boundaries (defined in Profile mode) and Material boundaries (defined in Geometry mode) is primarily a modelling distinction in Slide2. Both types of boundaries may represent material boundaries or some other type of boundary. In most cases, a profile boundary will in fact be a material boundary. The main reason for the distinction is for modelling and editing purposes.

• Profile boundaries can ONLY be created and edited in Profile mode
• Material boundaries can ONLY be created and edited in Geometry mode

This distinction allows the profile boundaries to be edited independently of other model geometry, and vice versa.