Abaqus is often applied to solve geomechanical boundary value problems. Several Abaqus built-in features enable a wide range of simulating such problems. For complex problems Abaqus can be extended via user subroutines. Several extensions for soil mechanics purposes are discussed and corresponding case studies are presented.

As high speed rail is becoming increasingly popular around the globe, alignments are being forced onto marginal land due to land costs and the requirement for straight tracks. Rail foundations spread the applied wheel loads to prevent damage to the underlying in-situ soil upon which tracks are built. Designs which cannot sustain the resulting stresses will cause serviceability issues and will r...