Itasca Consultants S.A.S.

In a few words

Founded in 1991, ITASCA CONSULTANTS S.A.S. is the European subsidiary of Itasca, International, Inc. a group of international experts in numerical modeling that provides computer modeling solutions to further understanding and resolve current engineering-related problems in the following fields.

GEOTECHNICS AND NATURAL HAZARDS

Design, analysis and audit of projects such as tunnels, foundations, dams, slopes, reinforcements, excavations, etc.

Project examples

WASTE DISPOSAL

Analysis of the fracture and damage of materials, flow and transport of particles.

Project examples

MATERIALS AND PROCESS ENGINEERING

Water resources management in porous and fractured media; Pollution diagnostics and design of methods for the decontamination of polluted sites.

Project examples

HYDROGEOLOGY

Water resources management in porous and fractured media; Pollution diagnostics and design of methods for the decontamination of polluted sites.

Project examples

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

Custom software development based on existing ITASCA codes.

ITASCA develops and sells three classes of two- and three-dimensional codes dedicated to the modeling of:

Continuous media (FLAC and FLAC3D)
Discontinuous media (UDEC and 3DEC)
Granular media (PFC2D and PFC3D)

	FLAC / FLAC3D	UDEC / 3DEC	PFC	3FLO
Geotechnics and natural hazards	•	•	•
Hydrogeology and Geochemistry				•
Waste disposal	•	•	•	•
Materials and process engineering			•

THE STAFF

Among the 70 engineers who work for Itasca International Inc. worldwide, the following are ITASCA CONSULTANTS, S.A.S.:

Daniel BILLAUX
d.billaux@itasca.fr
Managing Director
Dr. Billaux's expertise is in numerical modeling, fractured rock hydrogeology and geomechanics. He has developed and applied numerical models to simulate the flow of water in fractured rock. He has been a program manager for projects in the area of nuclear waste storage and geothermal energy and has provided consulting on many mining and civil engineering projects.

Lauriane BOUZERAN
l.bouzeran@itasca.fr
Rock mechanics, numerical modeling
Ms Bouzeran has used a micro-macro Distinct Element approach for evaluating the influence of joints on rock mass properties. She has also modelled tunnel excavation and reinforcement in continuum media.

Marco CAMUSSO
m.camusso@itasca.fr
Numerical modeling & soil and rock mechanics
Dr. Camusso is a Geotechnical Engineer with over 5 years of experience in the geotechnical and mechanical engineering fields. His areas of specialization are mainly related to modeling of underground excavations, study of soil-geotextiles interaction, and study of soil-pipe interaction during microtunneling installations.

Caroline DARCEL
c.darcel@itasca.fr
Hydrogeological modeling
Dr. Darcel has worked on geometrical characterization and hydrogeological modeling of fractured media. She has focused on the multi-scale properties of network fractures, characterized by power-law fracture size distributions and fractal spatial density distributions. Dr. Darcel also has developed unsaturated flow codes.

Fabian DEDECKER
f.dedecker@itasca.fr
Numerical modeling & soil and rock mechanics
Dr. Dedecker is a civil engineer with over 8 years of experience in the geotechnical and mechanical engineering fields. His areas of specialization are nuclear-waste disposal research, the static and dynamic stability of rock dams, and the study of flow in fractured rock masses, based mainly on discrete approaches.

Sacha EMAM
s.emam@itasca.fr
Quasistatic and dynamic behavior of granular systems
Dr. Emam has worked on the relationship between micro-mechanical parameters and large-scale mechanical properties (elastic modulii, friction angle, dilatancy,...) of model granular systems. He conducted both numerical studies (distinct elements simulations) and laboratory tests on model granular samples (uncemented glass beads) under quasistatic loading, with a particular focus on the role of the packing history and of the geometry of the produced samples. He was also involved in the numerical study of the flowing behavior and jamming of dry and cohesive granular media.

Jean-Christophe HENRY
jc.henry@itasca.fr
Numerical modeling in geomechanics
Mr Henry has analysed the mechanical behaviour of a nuclear waste disposal loaded by a soil layer, to optimize the design of the concrete enclosure which contains nuclear waste. Before joining Itasca, he was involved in several projects for EDF, including the design of a lifting platform for the replacement of steam generators and various studies on the overall operation of a PWR nuclear power plant.

Romain LE GOC
r.legoc@itasca.fr
Numerical modeling in hydrogeology
Mr Le Goc works on numerical modeling of fractured media. He is a graduate engineer in computer sciences and has gain experience in a unit of research in hydrogeology (France). He is skilled in grasping natural media issues and developing efficient numerical models. He has worked on the inverse problem in hydrogeology for highly channelled flow in heterogeneous media. He has participated in discrete fractured network modeling for a nuclear-waste disposal site (Sweden).

Wenjie SHIU
w.shiu@itasca.fr
Numerical modelling by a discontinuous approach
Dr Shiu has 4 years experience in discrete element numerical simulation. His main research topics concern the non-linear behaviour of the cohesive material (concrete compaction process) and the local damage prediction (perforation, penetration and scabbing) of a structure during a dynamic loading (missile impact). He is currently working on a European project (ProchePuits) for which a PFC2D simulation is involved.