Intertechne has almost 40 years of experience across a range of engineering work.
González Acevedo said it had been focusing more recently on the mining sector and dam decommissioning and stabilisation, safety, sustainability, and regulatory compliance.
In this project, software from Seequent, the Bentley subsurface company, had been adopted right at the start.
‘The main challenges faced involved the critical conditions of the dam, which restricted access for subsurface investigations, the high geotechnical complexity of the tailings, rigorous regulatory requirements, and the need for integration between 3D geological modeling, BIM, and advanced numerical analyses in 2D and 3D. Furthermore, the project demanded intense co-ordination among regulatory bodies, independent entities, and multidisciplinary teams.
‘Given the high degree of importance, the sensitivity of the project, and the need to reduce uncertainties associated with the behaviour of tailings and the structure’s foundation, the adoption of Bentley solutions was chosen due to their technical robustness and strong integration between tools.’
‘Native interoperability between the software allowed a continuous flow of data between disciplines, reducing information loss and ensuring greater consistency between geological and geotechnical models.’
‘Leapfrog was used to construct 3D models of the dam and its foundations, which were then imported into PLAXIS 3D to develop stress-strain models of the structure,’ he said.
‘The use of PLAXIS 2D and 3D allowed for drained, undrained, and coupled analyses of the construction sequence of the work, enabling the evaluation of a series of scenarios; with the use of the same constitutive model, making a more precise understanding of the structure’s behaviour possible and consequently the prediction of the performance of the stabilisation works.
The ability to automate analyses through Python scripting in PLAXIS was a key factor in the choice of software, González Acevedo said, alongside the availability of a constitutive model suited to the behaviour of the tailings, already implemented in PLAXIS.
Automating parts of the update workflow meant that as new investigation data arrived, the team spent less time rebuilding models and reconciling information between disciplines, increasing productivity and keeping the project on schedule.
‘The main success indicator of the project was the achievement of integrated, representative, and adequately calibrated geological-geotechnical models, reducing uncertainties and providing reliable technical support for decision-making in a project of high criticality and socio-environmental relevance.’