Papers cover: laboratory and in-situ testing; coupled effects and permeability; creep damage and dilatancy; constitutive modelling; crushed salt behaviour; numerical modelling; storage and disposal projects; mining applications; case studies; and salt pillars and cavities.

The world requires an increasing number of underground facilities for applications such as storage, waste repositories and traffic. Accurate prediction of the stability and deformation of these facilities is essential, and calls for model calculations using reliable and comprehensive constitutive equations describing the mechanical behaviour of the rocks involved, particularly the time-dependent effects. Here the authors combine their knowledge and personal experience in this field to encourage the practical use of material laws based on a sound physical and mathematical basis. Further discussion and research on the time-dependent behaviour of rocks and related materials is supported in the text by more than 200 figures. The text covers elasticity, creep, dilatancy, creep failure and short term failure, experimental techniques and test results, micromechanical deformation mechanisms, viscoplasticity and computation using appropriate constitutive equations, including many fundamental model calculations. Rock mechanics incorporates aspects of many disciplines including structural geology, soil mechanics, material sciences, civil, mining and petroleum engineering, seismology and geophysics. This book will therefore find a wide appreciation amongst engineers, researchers and graduate students in these and other related areas.

Aim of this book is to present to researchers and engineers a description of the present knowledge on the viscoplasticity of geomaterials, considering the experimental and theoretical aspects and the applications to relevant problems. First, the laboratory tests performed in order to quantitatively assess the theological properties of rocks are illustrated, describing the equipments used in modern rock mechanics laboratories and the proper testing procedures. Part of the presentation is devoted to the description of constitutive creep laws having different degrees of accuracy and complexity. The book covers also problems related to the application of numerical solution procedures to rock/soil mechanics situations in which the slow deformation of geomaterials is to be taken into account.