ABSTRACT
Design of rock fall protection structures requires information on the mass and impact velocity of the fall to determine the impact energy, and the fall trajectories to determine the height and location of the structure on the slope. These design parameters are usually obtained from computer simulation programs. Numerous modeling programs have been developed since the late 1980s that included commercial programs, and a variety of university research tools. The complexity of these programs varies from simple two-dimensional, lumped mass models to three-dimensional models in which the shape and size of the body can be defined and its orientation is tracked during the fall.
