Tunelling and Tunnel Mechanics: A Rational Approach to Tunnelling, Dimitrios Kolymbas

Tunnelling is an exciting and rapidly evolving technology. Pioneering processes are commonplace and innovative thinking continues to rewrite the rules. In civil engineering, tunnelling is one of the few areas where new horizons are constantly being discovered (ISBN-13: 9783540251965).

As rock mechanics is less developed and less known than soil mechanics, the principles of this young discipline are included in this book. I also attempted to integrate theoretical and practical viewpoints, since I consider both of them indispensable to engineering. The often encountered attitude of practitioners to blame theory (and vice versa) is regrettable. The theory addressed here refers to the mechanics of soil/rock behaviour and its interaction with the various support structures. Some chapters of the book aim at the description of planning and construction processes and, thus, need no reference to theory. Some other chapters contain both, practical and theoretical aspects.