Table 2. Field estimates ofurnaxial compressive strength.

Uniaxial Point
Comp. Load
Grade* Term Strength Index Field estimate of strength Examples**
(MPa) (MPa)_______________________________________________________

R6 Extremely > 250 >10 Rock material only chipped under Fresh basalt chert, diabase,
Strona repeated halnnler blows, rings when gneiss, granite, quartzite
~ ^ ~Av struck

R5 Very Requires many blows of a geo- Alnphibolite. sandstone,

strong 100 _ 250 4 _ 10 logical hammer to break intact rock basalt, gabbro, gneiss, gra-
specimens diarists, limestone, mar-
ble, rhyolite, tuff
Hand held specimens broken by a Limestone, marble,
R4 Strong 50 - 100 2-4 Phyllis, single blow of geological hammer sandstone, schist,
shale
R3 Medium
strong 25 _ 50 1_2 Finn blow with geological pick in- Claystone, coal, concrete,
dents rock to 5 nlm, kllife just schist, shale, siltstone
scrapes surface
R2 Weak 5 - 25 ***
Knife cuts material but too hard to Chalk, rocksalt, potash
shape into triaxial specimens
R1 Very
weak I _5 *** Material crumbles under flml blows Highly weathered or
altered of geological pick. can be shaped rock
with knife
RO
Extremely 0.25 - I *** Indented by thumbnail Clay gouge
weak

* Grade according to ISRM (1981).

** All rock types exhibit a broad range of uniaxial compressive strengths which reflect the heterogeneity in com-
position and anisotropy in structure. Strong rocks are characterised by well interlocked crystal fabric and few
voids.
*** Rocks with a uniaxial compressive strength below 25 iv rely to yield highly ambiguous results under
point load testing.

The most general form of the Hoek Brown For poor quality rock masses in which the
criterion, which incorporates both the original tight interlocking has been partially destroyed by
and the modified form, is given by the equation: shearing or weathering, the rock mass has no
tensile strength or " cohesion" and specimens will
v i' . a re . oc (m!b . ' (3) fall apart without confinement For such rock
masses the modified criterion is more appropriate
where: and this is obtained by putting s = 0 in equation
.:. mb is the value of the constant m for the rock 3 which gives:
mass
a' . oz/ ac [ r ob~ )' (5)
.:. s and a are constants which depend upon the +

characteristics of the rock mass

.:. ac is the uniaxial compressive strength of the
intact rock pieces and
.:. 61 and a3 are the axial and confining effective
principal stresses respectively.
The original criterion has been found to work
well for most rocks of good to reasonable quality
in which the rock mass strength is controlled by
tightly interlocking angular rock pieces. The fail-
ure of such rock masses can be defined by setting
a = 0.5 in equation 3, giving:
a ' . a 3' + Oc [ r ob~' u (4)
It is practically impossible to carry out triaxial
or shear tests on rock masses at a scale which is
appropriate for surface or underground excava-
tions in mining or civil engineering. Numerous
attempts have been made to overcome this prob-
lem by testing small scale models, made up from
assemblages of blocks or elements of rock or of
carefully designed model materials. While these
model studies have provided a great deal of valu-
able information, they generally suffer from limi-
tations arising from the assumptions and simpli-
fications, which have to be made in order to per-
mit construction of the models. Consequently,