Aim

-The purpose of rock mechanics is to understand how and why rock deforms either as a sporadic or catastrophic event. It is commonly applied to civil and geological engineering, mining, drilling, and conventional reservoir geohazard evaluation. For example, rock mechanics can help to predict how rocks will respond to drilling, blasting and tunnel and shaft boring, and can be used to design safe and effective support systems for deep excavations, open cuts, tunnels and ventilation shafts.

Objective

For most engineering projects involving rocks, the objectives of rock mechanics are essentially of three fold:

• (i) Determine the properties of the rock and the rock mass associated with the project of interest. These properties may be physical, mechanical, hydraulic or thermal.