May 2005

Board's Back!
Mark Board, who for 15 years was a mainstay of Itasca Consulting Group's mining engineering group, is returning to the company after a four-year term as the Subsurface Project Engineer for Bechtel/SAIC. Mark has played a central role in the mining and geomechanics studies conducted as part of the development of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste facility. He will start with Itasca on July 1, and, while an employee of Itasca Consulting Group, Inc., will be based in Spokane, Washington.

Potyondy's Back!
David Potyondy, who for nine years led PFC development and PFC-based consulting, is returning to Itasca Consulting Group after spending a year as Associate Professor in the Mining Engineering Department at the University of Toronto. David's principal role on his return will be to lead the expansion of Itasca's consulting work with PFC into new and exciting directions.

HCItasca is pleased to have these two valued engineers back in the fold, and we hope you will join us in wishing them a warm welcome back.

FLAC 5.0 Released!
FLAC 5.0 was officially released April 29. Purchasers who have not yet received their packages should receive them shortly.

FLAC Information:
What's new in FLAC 5.0
About FLAC

The upcoming release of PFC3D introduces a new optional feature in Itasca software: Iv. Using OpenGL, Iv is a fast pre- and post-processing visualizer that dramatically increases the speed of rendering and the quality of PFC3D plots. With Iv, objects created within PFC3D can be easily translated, rotated and zoomed. Lighting conditions, colors and transparencies can be easily changed to create high quality images fit for publication.

UpdateAlert:

Updated since
March 18, 2005:

Fourth FLAC Symposium Announcement and
Call For Papers

Itasca is proud to announce the Fourth International FLAC Symposium will be held in Madrid, Spain, on May 29-31, 2006. Itasca Consultores, S.L., HCItasca's office in Spain, will organize and host the event. See the initial announcement for information about the conference and the call for papers.

Itasca recently has completed its April slate of training courses. Attendees participated in the two- and three-day courses held at Itasca Consulting Group in Minneapolis. Training was offered for FLAC, FLAC3D, UDEC, and PFC2D and PFC3D. As part of Itasca's new, fixed training course schedule, another round of classes will be offered in October. Currently, classes for FLAC and 3DShop are offered. More will be added in the coming weeks. The page also offers information on complete class schedules and additional information.

Plans to add a third line to the Rome subway are currently in the design stage. Engineers at the University of Rome recently used FLAC3D to conduct a study of tunneling-induced displacements and the associated potential for damage to existing monuments at the historical center of the city. The geometry of the monuments, advancing tunnel face, shield and permanent lining are all represented in the three-dimensional model.

The figures above illustrate the three dimensional model adopted for the analysis of the Acquedotto Felice (XVI Century) and the deformed shape (exaggerated) of the monument in three dimensions after completion of the first tunnel. The research was sponsored by the Municipality of Roma through STA S.p.A. For more information about this model please contact: Fabio Soccodato (Universitá di Roma La Sapienza) or Giulia Viggiani (Universitá di Roma Tor Vergata).

Q: "Can the properties of a plotted item be changed using the menus in FLAC3D?"

A: Yes. After a plot has been activated (using PLOT show), its individual elements are listed on the "Plot Items" menu. Using the "Modify..." option for a given element will open a dialog that allows user specified properties for a number of switches, including color, line type, scale, contour intervals, ID numbers, and more.

   ©2005 HCItasca, Inc.

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