Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Quick Start Tutorial
Quick Start Tutorial
Quick Start Tutorial
Introduction
Welcome to RocFall. This tutorial will demonstrate some of the basic features of RocFall
including:
Creating/editing slopes
Defining/editing seeders
Assigning slope materials
Animation tool
Analysis tools
The finished product of this tutorial can be found in the Tutorial 01 Quick Start.fal6 data
file. All tutorial files installed with RocFall can be accessed by selecting File > Recent Folders
> Tutorials Folder from the RocFall main menu.
Model
Start RocFall by selecting Programs > Rocscience > RocFall 6.0 > RocFall from the Windows
start menu.
RocFall automatically opens a new blank document, which allows you to begin creating a
model immediately. If the RocFall application window is not already maximized, maximize it
now so the full screen space is available for use.
Project Settings
The Project Settings dialog is used to configure the main analysis parameters of the model.
Select Project Settings from the toolbar or the Project menu.
1 ‐ 2
RocFall v.6.0 Tutorial Manual Tutorial 1: Quick Start Tutorial
Analysis Method
In RocFall there are two possible analysis methods – Lumped Mass or Rigid Body, selected
on the General tab of Project Settings.
The default method is Lump Mass. With the Lump Mass method, the rocks are
assumed to be very small point masses with no physical size. We will be using the
Lump Mass method for this tutorial.
The Rigid Body analysis method allows you to define rock shapes. Rock shapes are
covered in later tutorials.
Engine Conditions
Select the Engine Conditions tab. Note the various control parameters. Once one of these
conditions are met, the rock will stop moving. See the Help system for further information
about the engine stopping conditions.
Creating/Editing Slope
In RocFall, the slope can either be drawn manually with the cursor (Add Slope option) or by
inputting vertex coordinates. In this tutorial, we are going to input coordinates to draw the
slope. Remember that you must be in Design mode to draw or edit the slope geometry.
Select: Slope > Edit Coordinates
In this dialog, you can use the tools at the top of the dialog to edit the datasheet. For
example, you can add a new vertex to the slope by adding a row and entering the
coordinates of the new vertex. Enter the coordinates below:
1 ‐ 3
RocFall v.6.0 Tutorial Manual Tutorial 1: Quick Start Tutorial
Note that in this analysis, the standard deviation for all the vertices is set to zero since we
are not going to consider any probabilistic variation of the slope surface. Notice that from
this dialog you can also import or export coordinates. Press OK.
Press F2 to Zoom All.
You can always open the Coordinates dialog by right clicking on the slope and selecting
“Edit Slope Coordinates.” You can also manually move vertices or delete them using right‐
click shortcuts.
Slope geometry for quick start tutorial
Defining/Editing Seeder
In RocFall seeders determine the drop location for rocks. Select Add Seeder from the
toolbar or the Seeder menu.
You can place a seeder at a location using the cursor on the screen or by entering the
coordinates in the prompt line. The prompt line is located at the bottom right hand side of
the RocFall application window and it is commonly used for entering coordinates while
creating the slope geometry.
Enter 0.5, 0 in the prompt line. The “Seeder Properties” dialog should appear.
In the Seeder Properties dialog select Group 1 from the rock type list on the left hand side.
Change the number of rocks to 50.
You may edit the initial velocity of each rock type in the Seeder Properties dialog. In this
dialog, you can set the mean, standard deviation, relative minimum and maximum for the
initial velocity to get the desired distribution. For this tutorial, set the mean value for
1 ‐ 4
RocFall v.6.0 Tutorial Manual Tutorial 1: Quick Start Tutorial
horizontal velocity to 1.5 m/s. Select the distribution button beside the edit box, and
change the distribution to Normal. Set the standard deviation to 0.15.
By default, the relative minimum and maximum is calculated to be three times the standard
deviation entered, if the “3x std. dev” checkbox is selected. Furthermore, you can change
the relative minimum and maximum values at any time if this calculation is not desired.
Make sure the vertical velocity is 0 m/s with distribution set to “None” and rotational
velocity is set to 0 deg/s with distribution set to “None”. For the Lump Mass method the
initial rotation is not applicable, so it is disabled (initial rotation is only applicable for rigid
body rock shapes).
You can always edit a seeder by right‐clicking on the seeder and selecting Seeder Properties
from the popup menu. Now let’s view the rock properties.
1 ‐ 5
RocFall v.6.0 Tutorial Manual Tutorial 1: Quick Start Tutorial
Rock Types
Select Rock Type Library from the toolbar or the Seeder menu.
In this dialog, we can create different rock types and define the mass and density of each
rock type. You can also define the rock shape if the analysis method = Rigid Body. Since we
are using the Lump Mass method, rock shapes are not available. We will only be using a
single rock type (Group 1) so we will use the default settings. Press OK.
Defining Slope Materials
Select Slope Material Library from the toolbar or the Slope menu.
Similar to the “Seeder Properties” dialog, the “Slope Material Library” dialog allows you to
change the distribution type and the distribution parameters for each material. You can also
add or remove materials. Let’s define three new materials.
1. Select the Add button in the Slope Material Library dialog to create a new
material type.
2. Change the name of the new material to Type One, and enter the properties given
in the table below.
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 to define two more new materials named Type Two and Type
Three. See the table below for their properties.
1 ‐ 6
RocFall v.6.0 Tutorial Manual Tutorial 1: Quick Start Tutorial
4. When you are finished entering all of the properties, the dialog should look as
follows.
You can find more information about these parameters in the Help menu. Press OK. You are
now ready to assign the material properties to the slope.
Assigning Slope Materials
Select Assign Slope Materials from the toolbar or the Slope menu.
Select “Type One” from the dialog.
1 ‐ 7
RocFall v.6.0 Tutorial Manual Tutorial 1: Quick Start Tutorial
Left‐click on the first and third line segments from the left to assign the “Type One”
material.
Select “Type Two” and left‐click on the second segment from the left.
Select “Type Three” and left‐click on the last two segments.
The model should appear as follows. Close the Assign dialog.
Materials assigned to slope segments
1 ‐ 8
RocFall v.6.0 Tutorial Manual Tutorial 1: Quick Start Tutorial
Results
Now that the model is ready, select the Results mode to run the analysis. In this mode, the
analysis tools appear on the main toolbar and the rock paths are shown on the slope.
Results of 50 rock throws (lump mass model)
Animation
A very useful feature of RocFall is the animation capability. To animate rock paths, you can
select Animate Path from the toolbar, the Results menu, or right‐click on any rock path and
select “Animate Path” from the popup menu. The “Animate Result” dialog appears on the
screen and allows you to change the speed of animation and control the animation
progress.
In the Animate dialog, click through each rock path using the forward arrow beside the
rock id number. The rock path variability for this example, is generated by the statistical
distributions we defined for the initial velocity of the rocks, and the slope material
properties.
Note that when you animate rock paths, each rock is drawn as a small circle when you use
the Lump Mass method. Even though the rocks have no physical size with the Lump Mass
method, for display purposes the rocks must be drawn with a finite dimension.
Close the Animate dialog.
1 ‐ 9
RocFall v.6.0 Tutorial Manual Tutorial 1: Quick Start Tutorial
Animation of rock paths
Analysis Tools
The analysis tools on the toolbar let you visualize the results of the analysis. “Graph
Endpoints” and “Graph Data on Slope” and “Graph Distribution” analyses are demonstrated
in this tutorial.
Graph Endpoints
The horizontal location of rock endpoints is one of the most common and easily understood
results from a RocFall analysis.
Select Graph Endpoints from the toolbar or the Graphs menu.
Tile the views and press F2 in the slope view to zoom the model.
As you can see from the endpoint histogram, most rocks come to rest at the bottom of the
slope, but a few have stopped on the upper bench. Note that you can view information for
the bars in the histogram (e.g. X‐location, number of rocks) by hovering the cursor over the
bars.
1 ‐ 10
RocFall v.6.0 Tutorial Manual Tutorial 1: Quick Start Tutorial
Rock endpoint histogram and rock paths in slope view
Graph Data on Slope
Envelope graphs of rockfall results can be generated with the Graph Data on Slope option.
Kinetic Energy (Total, Translational, and Rotational), Velocity (Translational and Rotational)
and Bounce Height envelopes can be generated. Click the mouse in the slope view.
Select Graph Data on Slope from the toolbar or the Graphs menu.
The Graph Data on Slope dialog should appear. Select “Bounce Height” for Data to Plot and
change the Value to Max, then select Plot Data.
Note that the plot will appear in a new tab and you can switch back to the slope view tab to
do other analyses.
1 ‐ 11
RocFall v.6.0 Tutorial Manual Tutorial 1: Quick Start Tutorial
Bounce height envelope plot
Note that you can also specify the Mean or a Percentile value to plot, since the Max is
generally conservative.
Graph Distribution
Distribution graphs show the distribution of results at a selected X‐location (horizontal
location) along the slope. Kinetic Energy (Total, Translational, and Rotational), Velocity
(Translational and Rotational) and Bounce Height distribution graphs can be generated.
Select Graph Distribution from the toolbar or the Graphs menu.
In the Distribution Graph dialog select “Translational Velocity” for Data to Plot and select
Plot Data. The results appear in a new tab as a split view as shown.
1 ‐ 12
RocFall v.6.0 Tutorial Manual Tutorial 1: Quick Start Tutorial
Distribution graph of translational velocity at selected X‐location
As you click on different locations on the slope model at the bottom of the split view, the
chart above will update with the distribution results corresponding to the indicator location.
You can single click the mouse or click and drag the vertical location indicator to update the
graph results.
Exporting Graph Results
For any graph, you can select “Export to Excel” under the File menu or right‐click on the plot
area and select “Plot in Excel” to view the data in Microsoft Excel.
You can also right‐click any plot area and select “Copy Data” to copy the raw data used to
generate graphs to the Windows clipboard. From the clipboard, the raw data can be pasted
into word processing or spreadsheet programs, for further analysis, or report writing. This
allows you, for example, to perform “custom” analyses that are not available with RocFall.
For instance, you could copy the raw data associated with the rock endpoints into your
spreadsheet, sort the data and fit an unusual probability distribution to the data.
Info Viewer
The Info Viewer option in the toolbar or the Project menu, displays a summary of all RocFall
model parameters in its own view. This includes:
Slope geometry
Slope materials
Seeder properties
Simulation parameters
Barrier and collector properties
1 ‐ 13
RocFall v.6.0 Tutorial Manual Tutorial 1: Quick Start Tutorial
Select Info Viewer from the toolbar or the Project menu.
The Info Viewer information can be copied to the clipboard or saved to an HTML file using
the options in the right‐click menu. From the clipboard, the information can be pasted into
word processing programs for report writing.
NOTE: analysis results are NOT recorded in the Info Viewer. However, as discussed above
graph results can be copied to the clipboard with the Copy Data option or exported to
Microsoft Excel.
Saving RocFall Models
Before concluding this Quick Start Tutorial, we will save our RocFall model.
Select: File > Save
Enter the name QuickTutorial.fal6 for our file.
To exit the program:
Select: File > Exit
This concludes the Quick Start tutorial. Enjoy using RocFall!
1 ‐ 14