Rock Mechanics & Geomechanics Department

The Rock Mechanics & Geomechanics Department focuses on the stress-dependent behavior of rock that governs the safety of subsurface facilities. Students learn to quantitatively predict when and how rock fails using in-situ-stress and poroelastic modeling together with rock-failure-criterion simulation, and apply this to wellbore-stability assessment and hydraulic-fracturing design. Graduates are ready to personally evaluate subsurface integrity and set safety criteria for a range of underground operations, including CO2 and hydrogen storage.

⚙️ GeoAcademy System Administration College 🖥️ AI & Computing Sciences College 🔬 Basic Sciences College ⚡ Intelligent Geophysical Exploration College 🛢️ Resource & Energy Engineering College 🌍 Applied Geoscience Solutions College 💼 Economics, Policy & Strategy for the Future College 🎓 Education & Training Development College 🚀 Innovation & International Collaboration College

Well & Production Engineering Department Rock Mechanics & Geomechanics Department Geothermal Energy Engineering Department Hydrogen Energy & Storage Department Carbon Engineering Department Mining Engineering Department Nuclear Energy Engineering Department Reservoir Modeling & Recovery Department

🔑

⭐ Terzaghi

Chair

💡 Rock Mechanics & Geotechnical Engineering

Researchers (real GeoVerse Lab members) 22

🧑‍🔬

🔑

1877–1960

Ernest Masson Anderson

Researcher

💡 The Dynamics of Faulting (1905): classified crustal stress regimes (normal, strike-slip, reverse) from principal-stress orientation, the Andersonian theory still used to characterize in-situ stress state

🧑‍🔬

🔑

1907–1979

John Conrad Jaeger

Researcher

💡 Co-author of Fundamentals of Rock Mechanics (with N.G.W. Cook), the standard modern textbook systematizing rock failure criteria and strength theory

🧑‍🔬

🔑

1903–1940

Leo Rendulic

Researcher

💡 Extended Terzaghi's one-dimensional consolidation theory to multi-dimensional pore-pressure/effective-stress states (1935-1936), the Terzaghi-Rendulic consolidation theory

🧑‍🔬

🔑

1841–1901

Ernst Gustav Kirsch

Researcher

💡 The Kirsch equations (1898): closed-form elastic solution for the stress concentration around a circular hole in an infinite plate, the universal basis for analyzing stress around a wellbore/borehole

🧑‍🔬

🔑

1918–2001

Daniel C. Drucker

Researcher

💡 Drucker-Prager yield criterion (1952), the standard continuum-plasticity failure model for pressure-dependent frictional materials (soils, sands, rocks) used to simulate cavity collapse and sand production

🔑

1908–2000

Sergey Khristianovich

Researcher

💡 Co-developed the KGD (Khristianovich-Zheltov) plane-strain hydraulic fracture propagation model (1955), one of the two foundational analytical models (with PKN) for hydraulic fracture width and extent

🧑‍🔬

🔑

1924–2006

Robert R. Berg

Researcher

💡 Capillary Pressures in Stratigraphic Traps (1975): established the capillary-displacement-pressure method for calculating maximum trapped fluid-column height, the founding quantitative theory of caprock/seal capacity

🧑‍🔬

🔑

1927–2015

James Byerlee

Researcher

💡 Byerlee's law (1978): the near-universal empirical frictional-strength relationship for rock, the standard criterion used to assess fault reactivation and slip under injection-induced stress/pore-pressure change

🧑‍🔬

🔑

1928–2008

Robert E. Gibson

Researcher

💡 Extended one-dimensional consolidation theory to finite-strain, self-weight, and layered/heterogeneous cases (1958-1967), the mathematical basis for compaction/subsidence modeling of thick, heterogeneous compressible strata

🧑‍🔬

🔑

1922–2018

Don U. Deere

Researcher

💡 Rock Quality Designation (RQD, 1964): simple quantitative core-logging index of rock-mass quality, the required foundational input to every subsequent rock mass classification system (RMR, Q-system, GSI)

🧑‍🔬

🔑

1911–1974

David T. Griggs

Researcher

💡 Invented the Griggs apparatus (1960s), the most widely used high-pressure/temperature triaxial rock deformation testing apparatus, founding experimental rock deformation as a discipline

🧑‍🔬

🔑

1906–1987

Raymond D. Mindlin

Researcher

💡 Mindlin-Deresiewicz theory of tangential contact force between elastic spheres (1953), the literal contact-mechanics law used in nearly all discrete element method (DEM) codes for granular/rock simulation

🧑‍🔬

🔑

1913–2004

John Argyris

Researcher

💡 Matrix (direct stiffness) formulation of structural analysis (1954-1955), among the founding formulations of the modern finite element method (FEM)

🧑‍🔬

🔑

1930–1997

Melvin Friedman

Researcher

💡 Founded the Texas A&M Center for Tectonophysics; conducted extensive experimental confined-pressure deformation testing of evaporite (salt) and carbonate rocks, foundational to modern salt-mechanics/creep understanding

🧑‍🔬

🔑

1953–2010

Olivier Coussy

Researcher

💡 Developed the general theory of coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical-chemical (THMC) behavior of porous continua (1995 onward), unifying and generalizing poroelasticity into a single thermodynamically consistent multiphysics framework

🧑‍🔬

🔑

1907–1998

George R. Irwin

Researcher

💡 Defined the stress intensity factor K (1957), the founding concept of linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) used to determine fracture toughness and predict crack propagation

🧑‍🔬

🔑

1929–2017

Zvi Hashin

Researcher

💡 Hashin-Shtrikman variational bounds (1963), the rigorous effective-medium bounds for the elastic properties of heterogeneous/anisotropic multiphase materials, applied to layered and laminated rock such as shale

🧑‍🔬

🔑

1922–2022

Branko Ladanyi

Researcher

💡 Ladanyi-Archambault rock joint shear-strength and dilatancy model (1970), one of the most cited constitutive models of rock discontinuity shear behavior

🧑‍🔬

🔑

1935–2025

Richard E. Goodman

Researcher

💡 Developed block theory (with Gen-Hua Shi), the standard kinematic method for identifying removable, potentially unstable blocks in jointed rock slopes and excavations, and invented the Goodman Jack for in-situ rock deformability testing

🔑

1893–1975

Ladislaus von Rabcewicz

Researcher

💡 Principal developer and namer of the New Austrian Tunneling Method (NATM, 1957-1965), which uses the surrounding rock mass itself as a load-bearing structural element monitored and supported adaptively during excavation

🔑

1781–1840

Siméon Denis Poisson

Researcher

💡 Poisson's ratio and the equations of linear elasticity; Poisson distribution

🔑

1776–1831

Sophie Germain

Researcher

💡 Pioneering theory of elasticity of vibrating plates (Paris Academy prize, 1816)