First published in 1993. This volume is a collection of papers addressing the issue of the failure of rock engineering structures. This phenomenon occurs in different forms depending on the geometry of structure, material properties of intact rock, structure of rock mass, environmental conditions and initial state of stress.

This book provides practicing engineers working in the field of design, construction and monitoring of rock structures such as tunnels and slopes with technical information on how to design, how to excavate and how to monitor the structures during their construction. Based on the long-term engineering experiences of the author, field measurements together with back analyses are presented as the most powerful tools in rock engineering practice. One of the purposes of field measurements is to assess the stability of the rock structures during their construction. However, field measurement results are only numbers unless they are quantitatively interpreted, a process in which back analyses play an important role. The author has developed both the concepts of “critical strain” and of the “anisotropic parameter” of rocks, which can make it possible not only to assess the stability of the structures during their construction, but also to verify the validity of design parameters by the back analysis of field measurement results during the constructions. Based on the back analysis results, the design parameters used at a design stage could be modified if necessary. This procedure is called an “Observational method”, a concept that is entirely different from that of other structures such as bridges and buildings. It is noted that in general, technical books written for practicing engineers mainly focus on empirical approaches which are based on engineers’ experiences. In this book, however, no empirical approaches will be described, instead, all the approaches are based on simple rock mechanics theory. This book is the first to describe an observational method in rock engineering practice, which implies that the potential readers of this book must be practicing engineers working on rock engineering projects.

Rock dynamics has become one of the most important topics in the field of rock mechanics and rock engineering. The spectrum of rock dynamics is very wide and it includes the failure of rocks, rock masses and rock engineering structures such as rockbursting, spalling, popping, collapse, toppling, sliding, blasting, non-destructive testing, geophysical explorations, science and engineering of rocks and impacts. The book specifically covers fundamentals of rock dynamics, constitutive models, numerical analysis techniques, dynamic testing procedures, the multi-parameter responses and motions of rocks during fracturing or slippage in laboratory experiments, earthquakes and their strong motion characteristics and their effect on various rock structures such as foundations, underground structures, slopes, dynamic simulation of loading and excavation, blasting and its positive utilization in rock engineering, the phenomenon of rockburst in rock excavations, non-destructive testing of rockbolts and rock anchors and impacts by meteors or projectiles. The main goal of this book is to present a unified and complete treatise on Rock Dynamics and to represent a milestone in advancing the knowledge in this field and in leading to new techniques for experiments, analytical and numerical modelling as well as monitoring of dynamics of rocks and rock engineering structures.

This book is concerned with time-dependency in rock mechanics and rock engineering, whose spectrum is very wide. While the term “time-dependency” involves time-dependent behavior/rate-dependent behavior of rocks in a conventional sense, this books attempts to cover the spectrum as much as possible including coupled processes of thermal, hydrological and diffusions in rocks. It presents theoretical formulations, experiments, numerical formulation and examples of applications. Of paramount concern is the long-term response and stability of rock engineering structures, including for instance man-made and natural slopes and underground facilities such as tunnels and powerhouses.

The current, thoroughly revised and updated edition of this approved title, evaluates information sources in the field of technology. It provides the reader not only with information of primary and secondary sources, but also analyses the details of information from all the important technical fields, including environmental technology, biotechnology, aviation and defence, nanotechnology, industrial design, material science, security and health care in the workplace, as well as aspects of the fields of chemistry, electro technology and mechanical engineering. The sources of information presented also contain publications available in printed and electronic form, such as books, journals, electronic magazines, technical reports, dissertations, scientific reports, articles from conferences, meetings and symposiums, patents and patent information, technical standards, products, electronic full text services, abstract and indexing services, bibliographies, reviews, internet sources, reference works and publications of professional associations. Information Sources in Engineering is aimed at librarians and information scientists in technical fields as well as non-professional information specialists, who have to provide information about technical issues. Furthermore, this title is of great value to students and people with technical professions.

The emphasis in Rock Mechanics for Resources, Energy and Environment is on the application of rock mechanics to the extraction of natural resources, securing energy supplies and protecting the environment surrounding rock that is subject to engineering activities. The book will be of interest to rock mechanics researchers as well as to professionals who are involved in the various branches of rock engineering.

State-of-the-art in science; engineering aspects of rock mechanics in the areas of safety ; environmental protection. Discusses various aspects concerning modelling in safety analysis, stability of underground structures, and the contribution of incident and accident cases to the progress of rock engineering activities. The influence of the environment is also considered, namely in heat ; mass transport, contaminant migration, and underground storage of waste; products.