Rock mechanics is the theoretical and applied science of the mechanical behaviour of rock and rock masses;also compared to the geology, it is that branch of mechanics concerned with the response of rock and rock masses to the force fields of their physical environment. Rock mechanics itself forms part of the broader subject of geomechanics which is concerned with the mechanical responses of all geological materials, including soils. Rock mechanics, as applied in engineering geology, mining, petroleum, and civil engineering practice, is concerned with the application of the principles of engineering mechanics to the design of the rock structures generated by mining, drilling, reservoir production, or civil construction activity, e.g. tunnels, mining shafts, underground excavations, open pit mines, oil and gas wells, road cuts, waste repositories, and other structures built in or of rock. It also includes the design of reinforcement systems such as rock bolting patterns.
Famous quotes containing the words rock and/or mechanics:
“Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion city of our God!
He, whose word cannot be broken, Form’d for thee his own abode:
On the rock of ages founded, What can shake thy sure repose?
With salvation’s walls surrounded Thou may’st smile at all thy foes.”
—John Newton (1725–1807)
“the moderate Aristotelian city
Of darning and the Eight-Fifteen, where Euclid’s geometry
And Newton’s mechanics would account for our experience,
And the kitchen table exists because I scrub it.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)