Comparison of Intact Rock Strength Criteria for Pragmatic Design
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 143, Issue 4
Abstract
This paper compares several intact rock strength criteria against an extensive database comprising 128 data sets with over 7,000 laboratory test results. It includes over 1,000 new test data from several recent tunneling projects in Australia. The database includes sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rocks with unconfined compressive strength (UCS) values ranging from less than 10 to over 300 MPa. The criteria assessed are Modified Weibols-Cook, Lade, Hoek-Brown and two of its modifications, and Christensen. Several interpretations and conclusions are drawn. Any of the criteria can provide good fits to test data that do not show much scatter. However, curve-fitting becomes problematic when there is variability in the test data. The variation in test data swamps the differences between criteria. On balance, the Hoek-Brown criterion, with its parameters and derived as recommended and extended to three dimensions in the literature where required, produces a better fit to the majority of rock types considered.
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Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 143 • Issue 4 • April 2017
Copyright
©2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: May 5, 2016
Accepted: Sep 7, 2016
Published online: Nov 11, 2016
Published in print: Apr 1, 2017
Discussion open until: Apr 11, 2017
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