Question: What geotechnical software is used to analyze relatively rigid walls used for supporting the soil mass laterally?
Context: Retaining walls are relatively rigid walls used for supporting the soil mass laterally so that the soil can be retained at different levels on the two sides. Vacuum consolidation (or vacuum preloading) is a soft soil improvement method that has been successfully used by geotechnical engineers and specialists of ground improvement companies in countries such as Australia, China, Korea, Thailand and France for soil improvement or land reclamation (Chu et al., 2005).  It does not necessarily require surcharge fill and vacuum loads of 80kPa or greater can, typically, be maintained for as long as required.  However, if loads of 80kPa or greater are needed in order to achieve the target soil improvement, additional surcharge may be placed on top of the vacuum system.  The vacuum preloading method is cheaper and faster than the fill surcharge method for an equivalent load in suitable areas.  Where the underlying ground consists of permeable materials, such as sand or sandy clay, the cost of the technique will be significantly increased due to the requirement of cut-off walls into non-permeable layers to seal off the vacuum.  It has been suggested by Carter et al. (2005) that the settlement resulting from vacuum preloading is less than that from a surcharge load of the same magnitude as vacuum consolidation is influenced by drainage boundary conditions. An oedometer test is a kind of geotechnical investigation performed in geotechnical engineering that measures a soil's consolidation properties.  Oedometer tests are performed by applying different loads to a soil sample and measuring the deformation response.  The results from these tests are used to predict how a soil in the field will deform in response to a change in effective stress. Soil mechanics is a branch of soil physics and applied mechanics that describes the behavior of soils.  It differs from fluid mechanics and solid mechanics in the sense that soils consist of a heterogeneous mixture of fluids (usually air and water) and particles (usually clay, silt, sand, and gravel) but soil may also contain organic solids and other matter.  Along with rock mechanics, soil mechanics provides the theoretical basis for analysis in geotechnical engineering, a subdiscipline of civil engineering, and engineering geology, a subdiscipline of geology.  Soil mechanics is used to analyze the deformations of and flow of fluids within natural and man-made structures that are supported on or made of soil, or structures that are buried in soils.  Example applications are building and bridge foundations, retaining walls, dams, and buried pipeline systems.  Principles of soil mechanics are also used in related disciplines such as engineering geology, geophysical engineering, coastal engineering, agricultural engineering, hydrology and soil physics. Soil nailing is a construction remedial measure to treat unstable natural soil slopes or as a construction technique that allows the safe over-steepening of new or existing soil slopes.  The technique involves the insertion of relatively slender reinforcing elements into the slope – often general purpose reinforcing bars (rebar) although proprietary solid or hollow-system bars are also available.  Solid bars are usually installed into pre-drilled holes and then grouted into place using a separate grout line, whereas hollow bars may be drilled and grouted simultaneously by the use of a sacrificial drill bit and by pumping grout down the hollow bar as drilling progresses.  Kinetic methods of firing relatively short bars into soil slopes have also been developed.  Bars installed using drilling techniques are usually fully grouted and installed at a slight downward inclination with bars installed at regularly spaced points across the slope face.  A rigid facing (often pneumatically applied concrete, otherwise known as shotcrete) or isolated soil nail head plates may be used at the surface.  Alternatively a flexible reinforcing mesh may be held against the soil face beneath the head plates.  Rabbit proof wire mesh and environmental erosion control fabrics and may be used in conjunction with flexible mesh facing where environmental conditions dictate. A Technosol in the FAO World Reference Base for Soil Resources is a soil classification category of soil that combines soils whose properties and pedogenesis are dominated by their technical origin.  They contain either a significant amount of artefacts (something in the soil recognizably made or extracted from the earth by humans), some sort of geotechnical liner, or are sealed by technic hard rock (hard material created by humans, having properties unlike natural rock).  They include soils from wastes (landfills, sludge, cinders, mine spoils and ashes), pavements with their underlying unconsolidated materials, soils with geomembranes and constructed soils in human-made materials.  However, Technosols can also refer to a situation in which normal soil, such as a Chernozem, has been moved to a new location to act as a fill.  If this fill is less than 50 cm, then the soil is called a Technosol.  If fill material is greater than 50 cm deep, then the fill is designated by the original soil used to create the fill, in our example, a Chernozem.  Technosols are often referred to as urban or mine soils.  They are recognized in the new Russian soil classification system as "Technogenic Superficial Formations". Geotechnical investigations are performed by geotechnical engineers or engineering geologists to obtain information on the physical properties of soil and rock around a site to design earthworks and foundations for proposed structures and for repair of distress to earthworks and structures caused by subsurface conditions.  This type of investigation is called a site investigation.  Additionally, geotechnical investigations are also used to measure the thermal resistivity of soils or backfill materials required for underground transmission lines, oil and gas pipelines, radioactive waste disposal, and solar thermal storage facilities.  A geotechnical investigation will include surface exploration and subsurface exploration of a site.  Sometimes, geophysical methods are used to obtain data about sites.  Subsurface exploration usually involves soil sampling and laboratory tests of the soil samples retrieved. GEO5 is a geotechnical software suite developed by Fine s.r.o. (Czech Republic).  First programs were written by Jiri Laurin in 1989 in cooperation with the Faculty of Civil Engineering of CTU in Prague.  The software is used in the field of geotechnical engineering to analyze slope stability, shoring excavations structures, retaining walls, foundations (piles, spread footing or mats) and tunnels. A discontinuity in geotechnical engineering (in geotechnical literature often denoted by joint) is a plane or surface that marks a change in physical or chemical characteristics in a soil or rock mass.  A discontinuity can be, for example, a bedding, schistosity, foliation, joint, cleavage, fracture, fissure, crack, or fault plane.  A division is made between mechanical and integral discontinuities.  Discontinuities may occur multiple times with broadly the same mechanical characteristics in a discontinuity set, or may be a single discontinuity.  A discontinuity makes a soil or rock mass anisotropic. The Capricorn Plate is a proposed minor tectonic plate lying beneath the Indian Ocean basin in the southern and eastern hemispheres.  The original theory of plate tectonics as accepted by the scientific community in the 1960s assumed fully rigid plates and relatively narrow, distinct plate boundaries.  However, research in the late 20th and early 21st centuries suggests that certain plate junctions are diffuse across several dozen or even hundred kilometres.  The Capricorn Plate is a relatively rigid piece of oceanic crust along the far western edge of the former Indo-Australian Plate.  The Capricorn Plate was once joined with the Indian Plate and the Australian Plate to form the Indo-Australian Plate, but recent studies suggest that the Capricorn Plate began separating from the Indian and Australian Plates between and along a wide, diffuse boundary.
Answer: GEO5