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:
“Nobody dast blame this man.... For a salesman, there is no rock bottom to the life. He don’t put a bolt to a nut, he don’t tell you the law or give you medicine. He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that’s an earthquake. And then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you’re finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory.”
—Arthur Miller (b. 1915)
“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)