PFC Applications

Thanks to its general design, PFC can be customized and applied to a very broad range of numerical investigations where the discrete nature of the systems is of interest. Since the release of the first version in 1994, PFC has been successfully used by many academic institutions and private companies around the world for geoscience investigations ranging from fundamental research on soil and rock behavior at the micro scale to many large scale applications, including:

  • slope stability analysis,
  • rockfall hazard mitigation,
  • cave mining,
  • salt dome deformation,
  • sink hole formation,
  • hydraulic fracturing,
  • wave propagation in solids,
  • volcanic dome emplacement,
  • structural geology,
  • mine backfill,
  • brittle rock fracturing,
  • concrete and asphalt modeling, and
  • soil-tool interactions.

PFC has also been used extensively for material process engineering problems such as:

  • bulk material flow mixing,
  • bulk material conveying,
  • compaction of aggregates and powders, and
  • blast furnace modeling.

Well beyond the geosciences and process engineering, PFC has also been utilized to simulate the:

  • mechanical response of carbon nanotubes,
  • molecular dynamics simulations of Lennard -Jones materials,
  • the collective behavior of heart cells contracting,
  • extrusion of adhesive materials through nozzles (i.e., 3D printing), and
  • the interactions of magnetic materials, amongst others.
Software Downloads

PFC Releases


Dernières Nouvelles
  • ITASCA Strengthens North American Delivery of Integrated Geomechanics and Hydrogeology Solutions Drawing on decades of geomechanical and hydrogeological expertise, ITASCA has announced the formation of ITASCA...
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  • Itasca has announced the release of FLAC2D v9 Itasca has announced the release of FLAC2D v9, revolutionizing the way we analyze and predict...
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  • 6th Itasca Symposium on Applied Numerical Modeling The next Itasca Symposium will take place June 3 - 6, 2024, in Toronto, Canada....
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Évènements à Venir
11 août
ITASCA Joins Caving 2026 as a Main Sponsor
We are pleased to announce that ITASCA will be participating as a Main Sponsor in Caving 2026, the leading international conference ded... En savoir plus
15 sept.
ITASCA at EUROCK 2026: Advancing Innovation in Rock Engineering
ITASCA is pleased to announce its participation in EUROCK 2026 – ISRM Regional Symposium, taking place from 15–19 September 2026 in Sko... En savoir plus
20 sept.
ITASCA to Participate in CouFrac 2026
ITASCA will be participating in CouFrac 2026, taking place from 20–23 September 2026 in Uppsala, Sweden. The conference brings together... En savoir plus