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Ihsan Berk Tulu
Assistant Professor, Wayne and Kathy Richards Faculty Fellow, Department of Mining Engineering
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Ground Control and Geomechanics Research Group

The Ground Control and Geomechanics Research (GCGR) group’s mission is solving challenging problems in the mining industry and enhancing mine health and safety through development and application of new and innovative ground control technologies. Our research interests are in the theory and application of numerical methods, field instrumentation-monitoring technologies and digital mine solutions. We combine practical engineering experience and field monitoring with mathematical models to understand the mechanical response of the rock mass, the rock support and the interaction between them.

Our group also provides the widely used geo-mechanical-software, LaModel, along with the complementary Stability-Mapping software for combining geologic and stress information to create a map of the expected stability of the mine. Improving and developing the software for solving challenging real-world problems of our industry is one of our major research interest. Our direct access to the internals of the software tools also extends our research capabilities.


In our research we aim to develop practical design and early warning system tools for the mining industry. Our research approach consists of field monitoring phase, mathematical modeling phase and practical design development phase.