Book Description

With the ever-increasing developmental activities as diverse as the construction of dams, roads, tunnels, underground powerhouses and storage facilities, petroleum exploration and nuclear repositories, a more comprehensive and updated understanding of rock mass is essential for civil engineers, engineering geologists, geophysicists, and petroleum and mining engineers. Though some contents of this vast subject are included in under-graduate curriculum, there are full-fledged courses on Rock Mechanics/Rock Engineering in postgraduate programmes in civil engineering and mining engineering. Much of the material presented in this book is also taught to geology and geophysics students. In addition, the book is suitable for short courses conducted for teachers, practising engineers and engineering geologists. This book, with contributions from a number of authors with expertise and vast experience in various areas of rock engineering, gives an in-depth analysis of the multidimensional aspects of the subject. The text covers a wide range of topics related to engineering behaviour of rocks and rock masses, their classifications, interpretation of geological mapping of joints through stereographic projection, in situ stress measurements, laboratory and field tests, stability of rock slopes, foundations of structures, including dams and support systems for underground excavations. The Third Edition of the book is further enriched with the addition of a number of case histories in which the analyses and designs were carried out by adopting rock mass parameters as per RMR, Q or GSI. The consequence of such an approach is critically examined. With the adoption of parameters from joint factor, excellent performance prediction has been demonstrated for anisotropic rocks and tunnel. Various expressions developed for Kn and Ks for different conditions are included for adoption in numerical analyses. When dilatancy component is separated, the scale effect on shear response is insignificant. This edition provides a comprehensive understanding of rock mass response and enables students to tackle rock engineering problems more confidently and realistically, and therefore it will be of immense benefit to students, teachers, professionals and designers alike.