in reality, most structures involved in geotechnical engineering are three dimensional in nature, and although in many, plane strain or axisymmetric approximations are reasonable, there are some, for which 3-d treatment is required. the quantity of data, and the size of the various vectors and matrices involved in such analysis, increase dramatically. this has sever implications for computer resources. consequently, mathematicians have investigated ways of reducing these resources. one way is to employ iterative methods to invert the global stiffness matrix, as opposed to the direct methods usually used so far. however, these methods are unlikely to be useful in non-linear analysis, although they are recommended for linear analysis. the second way is to capitalize on any geometric symmetries that exist. particularly, if the geometry is axisymmetric, but the loading is not, then the fourier series aided finite element method (fsafem) can be used. comparison of fsafem and full 3-d analysis, using developed fortran codes, shows that, the former requires considerably less computer resources to obtain answers of the same accuracy.