<p>A large number of South Africa&rsquo;s open pit mines are located in fractured rock. Analytical solutions to pit flooding mainly make use of the Dupuit-Forchheimer approximation. A typical example of such a solution is the solution proposed by Marinelli ...

It is anticipated that the work presented in this thesis will contribute towards the understanding of the mechanical behaviour of the blast Ȭinduced damaged zone around underground excavations in hard rock masses.

Three tunnels for hydraulic purposes were excavated by tunnel-boring machines (TBM) in mostly hard metamorphic rocks in Northern Italy. A total of 14km of tunnel was surveyed almost continually, yielding over 700 sets of data featuring rock mass characteristics ...

<p>Observations of pillar failures in Canadian hard-rock mines indicate that the dominant mode of failure is progressive slabbing and spalling. Empirical formulas developed for the stability of hard-rock pillars suggest that the pillar strength is directly ...

<p>The Hoek-Brown failure criterion was originally developed for estimating the strengths of hard rock masses. Because of the lack of suitable alternatives, the criterion has been applied to a variety of rock masses including very poor quality rocks, which ...