Rheology of rocks within the soft to medium strength range

Abstract The paper contains a description of laboratory tests conducted at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, on dry and saturated rocks exhibiting uniaxial compressive strengths within the soft to medium strength range. A computer programme was developed to obtain and output mathematical expressions to the creep of rocks in order of best fit. The time-dependent equations thus chosen were compared with the expressions obtained by graphical methods. A comparison has also been drawn between the laboratory results and in-situ time-dependent measurements.