Rock mechanics is a very new science. It has been accepted as a recognized discipline for some two decades but it is only within the last five to ten years that it has been common to include the teaching of rock mechanics as a separate subject in undergraduate curricula at universities.
Thus, few senior mining engineers practicing in industry, either men in charge of production or those engaged in mine planning and design, are familiar with the subject. That this unfamiliarity has continued so long is also due in part to the fact that the results of rock mechanics in vestigations have been published in a large number of different periodicals covering subjects ranging from experimental stress analysis to obscure branches of applied earth sciences.
The first really useful textbook1 in the English language was published only in 1965, in Canada. It made available to students and to practicing engineers for the first time in concise form, the essential body of accepted knowledge about rock mechanics and developed the theories on which it is based in a simple, clear and logical manner.
Another factor which has resulted in rock mechanics science being slow to be accepted by the mining industry is that research work has often appeared to be esoteric and unpractical. Senior engineers have been reluctant to spend money on the application of new knowledge when the process of application seemed uncertain and ill-defined, and where the cost of field investigations (which is necessarily high) appeared to offer no certainty of economic reward. This is a reasonable attitude on the part of mining engineers; they are responsible to skeptical boards of directors whose chief concern is, very properly, the net return on capital invested. The application of rock mechanics science has not in the past
for these and other reasons, offered an obviously profitable form of investment opportunity.
Academics and research workers themselves must accept some of the blame for this sad state of affairs. They have generally been content to carry out investigations which could be done in their own laboratories and they have usually written up the results in a form suitable for Ph.D. examiners and other initiates. They have paid little attention to selling their ideas to industry or to convincing practical engineers that there 'is an accepted body of knowledge which is ready for practical application.
It must also be admitted that some consultants and research workers have themselves given rock mechanics a bad name in practical engineering circles by making extravagant claims for what could be achieved or by “plugging” some particular technique or gadget rather as a medicine man's universal remedy.
Industry must, however, take its share of the blame too. Generally, it has been too cautious and unimaginative in its approach to rock mechanics. No one, for instance, can accuse the U.S. Bureau of Mines of ignoring practical problems. Their reports of investigations contain a great deal of matter which is directly applicable to practical problems.
