Data Output

Detailed analysis results for individual slip surfaces (e.g. shear stress, pore pressure, interslice data, etc) are written to the output file during a Slide2 analysis. These results can be viewed and graphed in the Slide2 Interpret program.

The Data Output option on the General page of the Project Settings dialog, allows you to select whether detailed analysis results are saved for:

• the Global Minimum slip surface ONLY (the Standard option) or
• for all surfaces (the Maximum option).

The Data Output option directly affects the apparent compute speed, and the output file size, as described below.

Standard Data Output

The Standard option will provide sufficient data in most cases. Detailed analysis results will be available for the Global Minimum slip surface ONLY (for each analysis method used). The Standard option will in general provide much faster compute times, and much smaller output file sizes, compared to the Maximum option. The Standard option should generally be used at the start of an analysis, and whenever it is not necessary to view detailed analysis results for slip surfaces generated by a slip surface search, other than the Global Minimum.

Maximum Data Output

The Maximum option will save detailed analysis results as follows:

• for a circular slip surface search (e.g. Grid Search), detailed analysis results will be saved for the MINIMUM safety factor surface at EACH grid point of a slip center grid. Detailed data for NON-MINIMUM surfaces at each grid point, will NOT be saved, and will NOT be available.
• for a non-circular slip surface search (e.g. Block Search or Path Search), detailed analysis results will be saved for ALL surfaces generated by the analysis.

Compared to the Standard option, the Maximum option results in slower compute times (due to the time required to write data to the output file), and much larger output files. Depending on the total number of slip surfaces being analyzed, the differences in compute speed and file size may be very significant. For example, compute speeds may be a factor of 5-10 slower, and file sizes may be much larger (e.g. file sizes of 10 to 50 megabytes, and more, can easily be generated, if a large number of surfaces have been analyzed). Therefore, it is important that the user is aware of the effect of using the Maximum Data Output option. It should only be used if you need to view detailed analysis results for surfaces other than the Global Minimum, generated by a slip surface search.