The calculation of soil settlements is essential to guarantee the stability of structures in varied soils. Although classical geotechnical methods are used, such as elasticity theory and Terzaghi consolidation, the manual calculation of complex settlements can be laborious, making the use of specialized software necessary. In this context, Settle Classic was developed, an innovative program that allows settlement calculations without requiring commercial licenses and has a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to learn theoretical principles. The program was used in a case study in Pucallpa to obtain the total settlement experienced by the soil when a university infrastructure is built on it, for which the soil properties, foundation data and external load were entered, obtaining a total settlement of 6.018 cm, which indicates that this settlement exceeds the permitted limit for slabs established for this project (5.04 cm). Likewise, when validating the program with Settle 3D, a margin of error of 0.36% was shown for the settlement calculation of the case study, which validated the precision and reliability of the developed program. Additionally, the layer method was carried out in the developed program, dividing a stratum into several sub-strata, observing that the total settlement presents a slight variation as the number of sub-strata increases, which provides a value closer to the reality. On the other hand, the calculation of immediate settlement in granular soils was validated with a manual calculation using elasticity theory giving a percentage error of 0.37%. Therefore, the program developed Settle Classic is recommended for the calculation of immediate and consolidation settlements as it provides reliable results and is convenient for civil engineering students to verify their manual calculations.
Taipe et al. (Wed,) studied this question.