Hello Mohammad,

You can use software as Geostudio, Plaxis, Slide, and others, but I recommend you decide on the better model to represent your material first and then find the software with this model. However, if you don't know any of these, I recommend starting with Geostudio because of your easy interface and you can use the free version.

Hope this helps

Alexia Regine

I researched and wrote a paper many years ago on saturated behaviour of cohesionless granular material and stress history. I presume the plastic, elastic strain behaviour and densification at any resonant frequency may lead somewhere. The terminal density after vibration from seismic action is quoted and although the paper was researched well before my interest in TSF failures, my mentor may well have directed my research very well.

A senior geologist friend labelled it a Thesis but it was just a final year Project way before computer modelling was commonplace and has never been submitted anywhere.

The TSF failures and seismic vibration at the dam face and floor are of interest as the loose tailings material is "virgin" to stress history until after any seismic reorganization and my assumption is the floor/wall interface is an energy concentration possibly with more fines over time. The seismic is factored by duration, frequency of actual vibration and of seismic activity occurrences, orientation of forces relative to say dam face direction/alignment to faultline. Magnitude of seismic activity has some impact on failure response also. Copper mines are often associated with more seismic activity apparently.

Hello, It depends on what you want to do. You can use PLAXIS to simulate your problem according to your needs. However, If you want to apply specific yield criteria or adopt any continuum damage effects, FEM in MATLAB can be really beneficial. I am happy to discuss this.