Itasca News Articles

ARMA 2022 Student Design Competition

Congratulations to the winners of the American Rock Mechanics Association's (ARMA) 2022 Student Design Competition.


International Slope Stability 2022

Itasca is proud to be a Diamond sponsor of Slope Stability 2022 (October 17-21 | Tucson, Arizona). Itasca engineers from several countries will be attending. Do you have any slope stability challenges or software modeling questions? Then please stop by our booth (12 & 13) and chat with one of our consultants. Itasca is also providing a comprehensive pre-conference workshop on Monday, October 17.

Charles Fairhurst Rotunda Dedication

On August 26, family, friends, University of Minnesota staff and students, and Itascans gathered to celebrate the dedication of Room 207CC in the Civil Engineering Building, at the University of Minnesota, as the Charles Fairhurst Rotunda to honor Professor Emeritus, Charles Fairhurst.

Past News Articles

Software Benchmark Tests

To help with your hardware configuration decisions, Itasca has created an online benchmark speed test to compare different hardware configurations and software versions. Your results are uploaded to a benchmarking site for comparison with other users' tests. Available for 3DEC v7+, FLAC3D v6+, and PFC3D v6+.

Meet Our Summer Interns

Itasca is pleased to welcome three graduate student summer interns to Minneapolis. They will be working on software development and mining engineering consulting projects.

New Itascans

Itasca welcomes Amanda Schendel and Luis Wasserman to our team.

A Celebration of 40+ Years

Itasca celebrated its 40th anniversary in May, marking four decades of discovery, service, and family.

Introducing FLAC2D

Itasca is very pleased to announce FLAC2D as the next generation of our foundational software, FLAC.

Itasca Partners with Rescale for FLAC3D Cloud Computing

With the advent of web licenses, Itasca software can be run in the cloud via services like AWS or Azure. Rescale makes cloud computing easy with pre-installed software.

Software Forum Now Open

Itasca has launched a new software forum to provide a platform for users to ask questions, make suggestions, and discuss Itasca software.

2021 Tekne Award

Work on machine learning to advance safety and efficiency in wind energy construction earned a 2021 Tekne Award (Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning category) from the Minnesota Technology Association.

Itasca Software now Available for Linux

Version 7 or greater of Itasca software (FLAC3D, 3DEC, PFC3D, and PFC2D) are now operable on the Ubuntu Linux Operating System.

Model Plot Contest Winners

Itasca is pleased to announce the winners and honorary mentions of our Model Plot Contest as part of Itasca's 40th Anniversary celebrations.

Itasca Celebrates 40 Years

Itasca is celebrating 40 years of solving geomechanical and hydrogeological challenges through engineering and computer simulation for the mining, civil, and energy industries.

Stability and Stress-Deformation Analyses of Reinforced Slope Failure at Yeager Airport

This paper describes the material properties along with the inverse limit-equilibrium and permanent deformation analyses used to investigate the 2015 reinforced slope failure at the Yeager Airport near Charleston, West Virginia.

Computers and Geotechnics: Scott Sloan Best Paper Award for 2019

Itasca is pleased to congratulate Dr. Branko Damjanac and Dr. Peter A, Cundall for their journal paper being selected to receive the Scott Sloan Best Paper Award for 2019.

Introducing Our New IMASS Constitutive Model

The Itasca Constitutive Model for Advanced Strain Softening (IMASS) has been developed to represent the rock mass response to excavation induced stress changes.

2020 H. Bolton Seed Lecture: Open Issues about Soil Liquefaction

Dr. Bruce L. Kutter delivered the 2020 H. Bolton Seed Lecture at Geo-Congress 2020 in Minneapolis, MN, on February 25, 2020. The full title is "Open Issues about Soil Liquefaction from a Perspective Including Physical Model Tests."

Webinar: Using Rigid Blocks in PFC

This webinar will provide a brief overview of PFC modeling using convex rigid blocks, including example applications ranging from rock-mass behavior to granular flow, and highlight important tip and tricks and modeling challenges.

Remote Training Planned for 2021

Itasca Consulting Group is planning remote, online training for early 2021.

3DEC 7 is officially released!

Enhanced user interface with new automated block and zone generation tools, and new structural elements. Built-in Voronoi generator, new joint models, improved commands and FISH. Multi-threaded FISH and Python scripting.

Open Pit Dewatering: Dewater, Derisk, Deliver

Learn more about developing an effective strategy for open pit dewatering and avoiding common pitfalls in this E&MJ article.

Tutorial Series: Analyzing a Homogeneous Embankment Dam using FLAC 8.1

This is a three part tutorial series to calculate the total and effective stresses and water flow in a homogeneous embankment dam.

Griddle 2.0 Pre-release Now Available

Griddle offers automatic, interactive, and easy-to-use surface meshing and volume grid generation capabilities for FLAC3D, 3DEC, and many other engineering modeling formats, including ABAQUS, ANSYS, NASTRAN, LS-DYNA, VRML, and CSV.

Paper Awarded Silver Medal by SAIMM

The paper "A risk-based methodology to improve the definition of geotechnical sectors in slope design" has been awarded a Silver Medal by SAIMM.

Learning FLAC3D 7.0

New FLAC3D introductory tutorials are now available on our website. See how easy it is to set-up and work with advanced numerical models in FLAC3D.

Web licenses are now available!

They are ideal for organizations with many users at different locations and/or for cloud computing.

Itasca Symposium 2020 Proceedings

Download the 2020 Itasca Symposium proceedings and presentations for free.

Learn More About the Policies We're Updating

We’re making updates to our End-User License Agreement, Website Terms of Use, and Privacy Policy.

New ICG General Manager

Itasca Consulting Group, Inc. is pleased to announce that Dr. Tryana Garza-Cruz is now our General Manager.

COVID-19 Pandemic Response

In this exceptional time of the COVID-19 pandemic, Itasca International and its offices worldwide are closely monitoring the situation. While certain Itasca offices may be physically closed due to local conditions and requirements, we are maintaining business operations, including software sales and shipping, as well as timely delivery of ongoing consulting projects. We have implemented measures to ensure our personnel’s safety and will continue to monitor conditions over the coming weeks and months and, following government and public health guidance, will respond proactively. We will provide updates as necessary.

2020 Peter A. Cundall Award

Itasca Symposium 2020 Technical Papers and Statistics

Itasca Symposium 2020 - Registration Now Open!

Registration is now open for the Fifth International Itasca Symposium.

Itasca Awarded Prestigious Caving 2040 Research Grant

Itasca’s research aims to answer the key industry question “how should block caves be designed and operated to achieve high recovery during cave interactions”?

Latest News
  • ARMA 2022 Student Design Competition Congratulations to the winners of the American Rock Mechanics Association's (ARMA) 2022 Student Design Competition....
    Read More
  • International Slope Stability 2022 Itasca is proud to be a Diamond sponsor of Slope Stability 2022 (October 17-21 |...
    Read More
  • Charles Fairhurst Rotunda Dedication On August 26, family, friends, University of Minnesota staff and students, and Itascans gathered to...
    Read More