This book is concerned with time-dependency in rock mechanics and rock engineering, whose spectrum is very wide. While the term “time-dependency” involves time-dependent behavior/rate-dependent behavior of rocks in a conventional sense, this books attempts to cover the spectrum as much as possible including coupled processes of thermal, hydrological and diffusions in rocks. It presents theoretical formulations, experiments, numerical formulation and examples of applications. Of paramount concern is the long-term response and stability of rock engineering structures, including for instance man-made and natural slopes and underground facilities such as tunnels and powerhouses.


The field of rock mechanics and rock engineering utilizes the basic laws of continuum mechanics and the techniques developed in computational mechanics. This book describes the basic concepts behind these fundamental laws and their utilization in practice irrespective of whether rock/rock mass contains discontinuities.

This book consists of nine chapters and six appendices. The first four chapters are concerned with continuum mechanics aspects, which include the basic operations, definition of stress and strain tensors, and derivation of four fundamental conservation laws in the simplest yet precise manner. The next two chapters are the preparation for computational mechanics, which require constitutive laws of geomaterials relevant to each conservation law and the procedures for how to determine required parameters of the constitutive laws.

Computational mechanics solves the resulting ordinary and partial differential equations. In Chapter 7, the methods of exact (closed-form) solutions are explained and they are applied to ordinary/partial differential equations with solvable boundary and initial conditions. In Chapter 8, the fundamentals of approximate solution methods are explained for one dimension first and then how to extend them to multi-dimensional problems. The readers are expected to learn and clearly understand how they are derived and applied to various problems in geomechanics.

The final chapter involves the applications of the approximate methods to the actual problems in practice for geomechanical engineers, which cover the continuum to discontinuum, including the stress state of the earth as well as the ground motions induced by earthquakes. Six appendices are provided to have a clear understanding of continuum mechanics operations and procedures for how to deal with discontinuities/interfaces often encountered in rock mechanics and rock engineering.


Earthquakes form one of the categories of natural disasters that sometimes result in huge loss of human life as well as destruction of (infra)structures, as experienced during recent great earthquakes. This book addresses scientific and engineering aspects of earthquakes, which are generally taught and published separately. This book intends to fill the gap between these two fields associated with earthquakes and help seismologists and earthquake engineers better communicate with and understand each other. This will foster the development of new techniques for dealing with various aspects of earthquakes and earthquake-associated issues, to safeguard the security and welfare of societies worldwide.

Because this work covers both scientific and engineering aspects in a unified way, it offers a complete overview of earthquakes, their mechanics, their effects on (infra)structures and secondary associated events. As such, this book is aimed at engineering professionals with an earth sciences background (geology, seismology, geophysics) or those with an engineering background (civil, architecture, mining, geological engineering) or with both, and it can also serve as a reference work for academics and (under)graduate students.