Documentation and Theory Overview

RocPlane is a simple to use, interactive software tool for assessing the stability of planar sliding blocks / wedges in rock slopes. It also allows users to estimate the support capacity required to achieve a specified Factor of Safety. A planar wedge is a wedge for which sliding occurs on a plane that strikes approximately parallel to the strike of the slope face. RocPlane analyzes a slice of unit thickness taken perpendicular to the strike of the slope face.

Planar stability can be assessed using:

• Deterministic analysis (safety factor)
• Probabilistic analysis (probability of failure)

Getting Started

If you are a new user of RocPlane, you should begin by completing the RocPlane Quick Start tutorial to help familiarize yourself with the software’s main functions.

How to Use this Guide

Documentation

The Documentation tab helps you to get familiar with program features and provides details on specific tools/functions of the software. This section includes topics like terminology, general features, input data, analysis methods, viewing and display options, and more.

Begin with the RocPlane Program Overview page for an overview of the program and analysis assumptions.

Tutorials

The tutorials tab provides easy to follow, step-by-step instructions demonstrating how to use various features of the program and provide guidance for more specific analysis features of RocPlane. It is recommended that you go through as many of the tutorials as possible to get acquainted with the many different capabilities of the software.

Begin with the RocPlane - Quick Start Tutorial for an introduction to the basic modeling and data interpretation features of RocPlane.

Verification and Theory

The Theory and Verification tab contains a collection of Theory and Verification Manuals for the software. The Verification Examples represent an extensive set of models, from many different sources, which have been used to verify the accuracy of the solutions computed by the program. The Theory Manuals describes the equations used to calculate the forces acting on a wedge and the factor of safety.