ABSTRACT
Handin’s 110 chapter on rock strength and ductility in the Handbook of Physical Constants was a major attempt to summarize data pertaining to rock strength. Written in the early 1960s, it is the most comprehensive collection of rock strength data published up to about 1964. Since it was written, a massive volume of rock strength data has appeared in the scientific literature, and periodic reviews and several excellent books on experimental rock mechanics have been written. 149,150,183–185,215,225,292 Given these facts and practical limitations of this chapter, it is not possible or even desirable to attempt to produce a summary with the scope of the Handin review. We rather view this work as a source on the science of rock mechanics and a representative summary of data pertaining to experimental rock strength which have appeared since 1964. No attempt has been made to summarize the engineering properties of rocks, such as the room temperature compressive strength, since comprehensive summaries of this kind already exist (see references cited in Handin, 110 Lama and Vukutari 183, 184 Deere and Miller, 68 Hendron, 140 Ohnaka 218 ).
