Fundamentals of Rock Mechanics Fourth Edition

Abstract

When the first edition of this book appeared in 1969, rock mechanics had only recently begun to emerge as a distinct and identifiable scientific subject. It coalesced from several strands, including classical continuum mechanics, engineering andstructural geology, andmining engineering. The two senior authors of Fundamentals of Rock Mechanics were perhaps uniquely qualifiedto play seminal roles in bringing about this emergence. John Jaeger hadby that time already enjoyeda long anddistinguishedcareer as arguably the preeminent appliedmathematician of the English-speaking world, andwas the coauthor, with H. S. Carslaw, of one of the true classics of the scientific literature, Conduction of Heat in Solids. Neville Cook was at that time barely 30 years old, but was already the director of research at the South African Chamber of Mines, and well on his way to becoming acknowledged as the leading and most brilliant figure in this new fieldof rock mechanics. The earlier editions of this book played a large role in establishing an identity for the fieldof rock mechanics andin defining what are now acceptedto be the “fundamentals” of the field. These fundamentals consist firstly of the classical topics of solidmechanics – stress andstrain, linear elasticity, plasticity, viscoelasticity, andelastic wave propagation. But rocks are much more complex than are most of the traditional engineering materials for which the classical mechanics theories were intended to apply. Hence, a book entitled Fundamentals of Rock Mechanics must also treat certain topics that are either unique to rocks, or at any rate which assume great importance for rocks, such as friction along rough surfaces, degradation and failure under compressive loads, coupling between mechanical deformation andfluidflow, the effect of cracks andpores on mechanical deformation, and, perhaps most importantly, the effect of fractures andjoints on large-scale rock behavior. Rock mechanics, thus defined, forms a cornerstone of several fields of science andengineering – from structural geology andtectonophysics, to mining, civil, andpetroleum engineering. A search of citations in scientific journals shows that previous editions of this book have found an audience that encompasses not onl