Fundamentals of Rock Mechanics


Introduction

Rock mechanics was defined by the Committee on Rock Mechanics of the

Geological Society of America in the following terms: “Rock mechanics is the

theoretical and applied science of the mechanical behavior of rock; it is that





branch of mechanics concerned with the response of rock to the force fields of

its physical environment” ( Judd, 1964). For practical purposes, rock mechanics

is mostly concerned with rock masses on the scale that appears in engineering

and mining work, and so it might be regarded as the study of the properties and

behavior of accessible rock masses due to changes in stresses or other conditions.

Since these rocks may be weathered or fragmented, rock mechanics grades at

one extreme into soil mechanics. On the other hand, at depths at which the

rocks are no longer accessible to mining or drilling, it grades into the mechanical

aspects of structural geology (Pollard and Fletcher, 2005).


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