ITASCA Software services

Itasca specializes in the assessment of slope stability and design of pit slopes on bench, inter-ramp, and global mine scales. Itasca performs slope, instrumentation, and remediation design at many of the world’s largest open pit mines. Expertise in slope stability is not limited to open pit slopes. The company also routinely analyzes the static and dynamic stability of waste dumps, leach piles, and tailings dams.

In addition to conventional analytical and empirical methods, Itasca has developed Blo-Up, a proprietary tool for blast analysis as part of the HSBM consortium. Blo-Up can be used to understand blasthole-to-blasthole interaction, optimize fragmentation and throw, and minimize undesirable damage (e.g., smooth blasting for wall control). This unique blasting simulator models a variety of geometries. Blasthole patterns and explosives loading may be defined individually or as groups (patterns). Blo-Up simulation results include final muckpile profile, fragment velocities, blasthole gas pressure, and fragmentation and material distributions.

Caving is applied to increasingly deep, large, strong, and heterogeneous ore bodies. This increases the risk of stranded reserves in overhangs, potential for cave stall and air-blast, infrastructure rehabilitation or loss, and large-scale caving-induced subsidence.

Tailings dams are among the largest and most critical artificial structures in the world. Their analysis requires careful evaluation of all components and loading conditions. Itasca has performed detailed design and stability analyses for major tailing dams. Each analysis has been reviewed by experts representing governing authorities.