Learning

Customized Training

Customized Engineering Training Courses

Itasca Educational Partnership

ITASCA Academics

Software Tutorials

Fluid Flow through Jointed Rock

As well as flow through joints, 3DEC 5.2 is capable of simulating fluid flow through the blocks or the matrix (i.e., between the joints). It is assumed that the blocks represent a saturated, permeable solid, such as soil or fractured rock mass.

PFC 7 Creation of a Synthetic Rock Mass (SRM) Specimen

This tutorial will guide you through how to create a fractured Synthetic Rock Mass (SRM) specimen.

Generate a Hybrid Mesh by Combining Block Ranger and GVol

This tutorial will demonstrate a method to create a hybrid mesh of tetrahedral zones to model the rock mass and hexahedral zones to model a concrete liner. Hexahedral zones for the liner are preferred in order to more accurately capture plastic strains in this region. The meshing is done by utilizing the Itasca Griddle volume mesher plug-in for Rhino 3D. Importing the final mesh into FLAC3D, for future finite volume modeling, is also demonstrated.

Technical Papers

Influence of the particle shape on the impact force of lahar on an obstacle

Lahars represent natural phenomena that can generate severe damage in densely populated urban areas. The evaluation of pressures generated by these mass flows on constructions (buildings, infrastructure…) is crucial for civil protection and assessment of physical vulnerability. The existing tools to model the spread of flows at large scale in densely populated urban areas remain inaccurate in the estimation of mechanical efforts. A discrete numerical model is developed for evaluating debris flow (DF) impact pressures at the local scale of one structure.

Deep Sublevel Cave Mining and Surface Influence

With increasing depth, higher stress and more difficult mining. With increasing depth is there more ground surface effects or less?

Flowback Test Analyses at the Utah Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE) Site

Injection testing conducted in 2017 and 2019 at the Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy site in Utah evaluated flowback as an alternative to prolonged shut-in periods to infer closure stress, formation compressibility, and formation permeability. Flowback analyses yielded lower inferred closure stresses than traditional shut-in methods and indicated high formation compressibility, suggesting an extensive fractured system. Numerical simulations showed rebound pressure is not necessarily the lower bound of minimum principal stress. Stiffness changes can be identified as depletion transitions from hydraulic to natural fractures. The advantage if flowback is reduced time to closure.