RocToppleGrace Huang, the lead developer

at Rocscience for the software

development of RocTopple, our

new toppling stability analysis

program, talks about the chal-

lenges, the surprises as well as

the valuable contributions that

our users made through our Beta

Testing Program. Geomechanics

software solutions

used worldwide by

geotechnical

engineers

Software tools for rock and soil Article prepared for RocNewsSpring 2013

Rocscience: Congratulations on

completing your first program

as lead developer. What skills did

you need to acquire to work on

RocTopple?

Grace: A number of skills were

acquired and enhanced. I had to

learn visual C++ programming, and

familiarize myself with Rocscience

code. Given the opportunity to see

a project from beginning to end, I

was able to better understand the

process of research, and improve

RocTopple...from start to finish...A “behind the scenes” look at software development

Released in February 2013,

RocTopple 1.0 now completes our

suite of rock and soil slope stability

software, along with Swedge, Dips,

RocPlane, Phase2 and Slide. Even

though this new release is one of

our simpler programs, getting it

ready for our users was complex.

Grace Huang

shares

some of her

observations

during her

first project

as lead

developer.

2

my analytical and problem solving

skills. I have also had plenty of

opportunities to present my

research findings, and hone in my

writing skills through documenting

rock toppling theory and tutorials.

Last but not least, guiding a student

through programming a part of

RocTopple provided me with the

chance for leadership development.

In RocTopple,

distributed loads

can be used to model

surcharge loads, support

or external forces on the slope

face or upper slope. The units of a

distributed load are force per area when

considering the out-of-plane dimension of

the model (This view, load applied to

upper slope in 3D view).

3

R: What was the biggest challenge

during the development process?

G: The biggest challenge was

the implementation of external

influences, such as bolts, water

pressure, seismicity, etc. These

influences were not presented in

the original Goodman and Bray

paper, but the inclusion of these in

RocTopple is essential to users and

what makes the software practical.

The implementation of each of

these external influences required

research, design and verification –

a process that took well over two

years.

There is a lot of back-

ground work needed

to support capabilities

such as being able to

select and edit loads

and bolts.

R: What surprised you the most?

G: How work-intensive it is to make

user-friendly software. For seemingly

trivial functions such as being able

to select and edit loads and bolts,

there is a lot of background work

needed to support such capabilities.

Interface design is also an iterative

process. We change the interface

many times before finalizing.

Rock bolts are modeled as

simple end-anchored bolts with

a user-defined capacity, length, angle,

location and out-of-plane spacing. You can

add any number of bolts to a model. Each bolt in

the 2-dimensional model represents a row of equally

spaced bolts when considering the out-of-plane dimension

of the model (This view, bolts in 3D view).

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R: Did you have a mentor for this

project?

G: I had two mentors whose

experience with numerical

modelling and development helped

to put the project together. From

Brent, who has had experience

programing some of our other

slope stability analysis software, I

learned what to expect in terms of

numerical behaviour given certain

assumptions in the analysis method.

I also carried over to RocTopple

certain analysis approaches he had

taken in our other software. From

Damir, who has had experience

in software interface design and

optimization, I have received plenty

of feedback in interface design and

interface-engine programming.

R: Were there others at

Rocscience who helped?

G: We needed plenty of help to get

the product ready for customers.

This included student testers, some

who were adventurous enough to

help put together the 3-D view,

marketing staff to assemble the

product sheets and the webpage,

just to name a few.

R: Was the Beta Testing Program

helpful in improving the

program?

G: Absolutely. We had over 180

beta testers, so that we felt we had

a good sense of what users were

looking for.

Probabilistic analysis results and charts can be exported to Excel with a single mouse

click using the Export option in the File menu or the right-click menu. Histogram chart

and data exported to Excel.

We especially looked forward to

any recommendations. Given that

RocTopple is the only commercially

available block toppling analysis

software, we are keen in discovering

what role the software would play in

the industry and how we can make it

more useful.

5

The beta testing

program is invaluable.

It was through this

process that we

received practical

feedback from users

and effectively tailored

the functionality of the

program to them.

R: What were some of the specific

improvements suggested by Beta

Testers that were incorporated

into the final version?

G: There were many

recommendations, among which

the most frequent was the option

for the user to enter separate shear

strength properties for the toppling

and base joints. Another suggestion

that prompted intensive re-editing

of the program was to add the

Eurocode 7 Design standard. We

gave serious consideration, followed

by respective changes to the

program whenever any practical or

interesting suggestion was made.

R: What can you say about the

value of the Beta Testing Program

to both Rocscience and our users?

G: The beta testing program is

invaluable. It was through this

process that we received practical

feedback from users and effectively

tailored the functionality of the

program to them. It was also

through the data files provided to us

from users that we were able to test

and debug RocTopple given more

realistic models.

Finally, the experts in the field

helped us consolidate much of

the terminology in the program,

effectively improving program

clarity and user-friendliness.

R: Finally, what are you going to

work on next?

G: My next major project is to

upgrade RocLab. This program

allows users to input field and lab

data of soil and rock strength,

and then it provides the relevant

parameters for the best-fit failure

envelope of the material. On the

interface side, we would like to

modernize the look and feel of the

software, which includes providing

more professional report generation

options. As for the program

functionality, we would like to re-

design the curve-fitting process so

that users can be better informed

of the value of their dataset and

be given more appropriate failure

envelope parameters.

R: Thanks, Grace, for a job well

done.

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We would also like to give an acknowledgement and special thanks

to Dr. Richard Goodman, Professor Emeritus, University of California,

Berkeley, Dept. of Civil Engineering, for his original 1976 paper,

Toppling of Rock Slopes. The analysis implemented in RocTopple is based

on the popular block toppling method of Goodman and Bray, first

published in this paper.

Dr. Thamer Yacoub, Vice President, Geomechanics Research &

Business Developerment, Rocscience; Dr. Richard Goodman, Prof.

Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley - GeoCongress 2013,

San Diego, CA, USA.

Dr. Thamer Yacoub and Cathy

Weston, Manager, Sales &

Customer Relations, at the

Rocscience booth.

At the recent Geo-Congress 2013 conference in San Diego, Dr. Goodman,

one of the keynote speakers, became our first official RocTopple user.