Case Study: Wyllie & Norrish Rock Engineers improve rockfall protection design with Lumivero @RISK and PrecisionTree

Leveraging Probabilistic Analysis to Improve Rock Fall Protection Structure Designs with @RISK and PrecisionTree

Wyllie & Norrish Rock Engineers, a specialist geotechnical firm, faced the challenge of designing rock fall protection structures with significant uncertainty in key design parameters like mass and velocity. To quantitatively analyze these risks and communicate them to clients, they turned to vendor Lumivero and its software products, @RISK and PrecisionTree.

The solution implemented by Lumivero involved using @RISK for Monte Carlo simulations to model rock fall energies as probability distributions and PrecisionTree for decision analysis to compare mitigation strategies. This allowed the engineers to design a fence with a defensible impact energy capacity. For one project, this Lumivero-powered analysis resulted in a protection structure rated for 1250 kJ, capable of containing approximately 90% of predicted rock falls and providing peace of mind for road users.

Wyllie & Norrish Rock Engineers

Duncan Wyllie

Principal