Documentation
The user guide, in full
A 249-page reference for the practising engineer: what the tool solves, how it was checked, how to drive it, and what it cannot do. Free to download, no sign-up.
PDF · 14.5 MB · updated 17 September 2026
Written for engineers who have to sign the drawing. It assumes consolidation, not numerical analysis.
Contents
What is inside
Four parts: an introduction and tour, the numerical foundations, design and simulation, and back-analysis with forecasting.
Getting started
- What the tool is, who it is for, and the three tasks
- Where it sits beside the software you already use
- A tour of the application, and your first fifteen minutes
- What the book claims, and the evidence behind each claim
Part one · Numerical foundations
- What is being solved: the unit cell and the governing equation
- The element: cell-centred finite volume, one flux per face
- The mesh: zone-aware, graded, and how to change it
- Boundary conditions, interfaces, and marching in time
- Convergence and accuracy, and a defect the study found
- Verification against eight closed-form solutions
- Limitations, and a five-minute check on your own run
Part two · Design and simulation
- The two questions: one spacing in, or one target in
- The soil model, and how every parameter follows effective stress
- Design by bisection on the radius of influence
- The probabilistic approach, and reading the spacing band
- Sensitivity: what actually moves the answer
- Reading your results, caveats and good practice
Part three · Back-analysis and forecasting
- Why early back-analysis is hard, and the one score used
- The parameters, the search space, and the safety clamps
- The pipeline step by step, and when each step stops
- Reading your results like a professional
- The Asaoka cross-check, and common mistakes
- How far to trust the answer, and what is not modelled
- The validation campaign against sites with known truths
Evidence, not assertion
Every number in the guide is produced by the shipping build and can be reproduced from the examples in the app.
The limits are stated
Assumptions, failure cases and the results that went against the tool are reported beside the ones that went for it.
Help inside the app
Every card carries its own explanation behind a question mark, so the guide is a reference rather than a prerequisite.
Something missing or unclear? Tell us and it goes into the next edition.
Try it on your own profile
Start a 7-day free trial. Load an example project, change the soil to yours, and see the spacing band in minutes.