Learning

Software Tutorials

PFC 7 Balls in a Box

This tutorial will guide you through the main steps required to build a simple PFC model with 30 interacting balls in a box using the linear contact model.

FLAC3D 7 Zone Plotting Tutorial

This tutorial will show how to create and manipulate zone plot items for showing model attributes and results.

PFC 7 Generating A Bonded Assembly

This tutorial will guide you through how to create a simple material using the linear parallel bond-model.

Technical Papers

Elastic Properties of Fractured Rock Masses With Frictional Properties and Power Law Fracture Size Distributions

We derive the relationships that link the general elastic properties of rock masses to the geometrical properties of fracture networks, with a special emphasis to the case of frictional crack surfaces.

We extend the well-known elastic solutions for free-slipping cracks to fractures whose plane resistance is defined by an elastic fracture (shear) stiffness ks and a stick-slip Coulomb threshold.

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.

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?