User-Defined Slip Surface Overview
A User-Defined Slip Surface is a spherical, ellipsoidal or general slip surface created with one of the Add User-Defined Surface options:
- Add User-Defined Sphere/Ellipse Surface
- Add User-Defined Surface
- Add User-Defined Surface from Global Minimum
These options are only enabled if the Surface Generation Method in the Slip Surface Options dialog is set to User-Defined Surfaces.
Search Methods and User-Defined Surfaces
When you add a user-defined slip surface:
- You can apply the Surface Altering Optimization option to User Defined slip surfaces. In this case, the User Defined Surface will be converted to a spline surface and used as the starting location for the Surface Altering Optimization to search for lower safety factor surfaces.
- You can use the External Geometry Composite Surface option with User-Defined slip surfaces.
- You CANNOT use the primary Search Methods (e.g. Grid Search, Cuckoo Search, Particle Swarm) in conjunction with User-Defined Slip Surfaces. The two options are exclusive. If you need to analyze user-defined slip surfaces and search for critical surfaces using the primary Search Methods, then you will have to carry out the analyses separately.