Bentley acquires Plaxis and SoilVision
Firm to become a complete digital source for geotechnical professionals
Bentley Systems has acquired Plaxis, a developer of geotechnical software and soil engineering software provider SoilVision. The acquisitions are said to enable the firm to become a complete source for geotechnical professionals looking for a digital solution. Through the acquisitions, Bentley says BIM advancements can be extended to the essential subsurface engineering of every infrastructure project.
Describing workflows, Bentley points out that projects begin with geotechnical surveys and sampling, captured with gINT for documentation and reporting. From there, professionals perform engineering related to soil properties, soil behavior, and groundwater flow using SoilVision’s SVOFFICE applications, supplemented by Plaxis’ offerings. Then soil-structure interaction is then said to analysed through Plaxis’ design, simulation, and engineering software (e.g. PLAXIS 2D, PLAXIS 3D).
Bentley Systems CEO, Greg Bentley said, “My colleagues and I welcome our new teams from Plaxis and SoilVision, which have in common a zeal for applying science for better engineering practice. Dr Ronald Brinkgreve from Plaxis and Dr. Murray Fredlund, founder of SoilVision, exemplify this. I believe that every geotechnical engineer has benefitted from Plaxis’ continuous advancement, in scope and quality, of tools for their discipline to add value. With a professional and dedicated management team led by Jan-Willem Koutstaal, Plaxis has become one of the most successful software businesses I have ever seen.”
The firm says the new opportunity, through digital workflows enabled through its modeling environment, is for geotechnical applications to be integrated with Bentley’s structural applications (such as STAAD, RAM, and SACS) for in-depth geo-structural engineering performance.
Additionally, Bentley Systems highlights that because infrastructure assets are linked to subsurface environs, they are vulnerable to geo-environmental risks including seismic activity, subsidence, and weather impacts. The firm thus believes that by leveraging digital workflows which incorporate real-time monitoring and analytics during infrastructure operations, geotechnical professionals can play an increasingly valuable role in achieving geo-environmental resilience.
Bentley added, “While most infrastructure engineering disciplines converged around intuitive 3D models, geotechnical applications seem to have followed a less graphically intensive development path, and so have remained isolated from cross-discipline workflows. This ‘disconnected’ mindset prevailed even while Plaxis, SoilVision, and gINT mainstreamed 3D innovations. Our BIM platform’s comprehensive modeling environment will finally embrace the geotechnical profession in digital workflows for every infrastructure project and asset.”
