Determination of strength of rocks by using physical and elastic parameters

The uniaxial compressive strength of rocks is used as an important parameter in the design of many engineering projects such as dam, tunnel and rock slope stability analysis. However, determining the uniaxial compressive strength of rocks is a difficult, time-consuming and expensive experiment. For this reason, indirect methods are also used to determine the uniaxial compressive strength of rocks. In the literature, there are relations suggested by the researchers for the estimation of uniaxial compressive strength. In these methods, which aim to estimate uniaxial compressive strength by using various statistical methods, the inability to reach the sufficient number of data causes the obtained correlations to be insufficient. In this study, empirical formulas were obtained by examining the relationship between natural unit weight, Schmidt hardness, dynamic modulus of elasticity and uniaxial compressive strength on 238 core samples obtained from 8 different rocks. Obtained empirical formulas were subjected to performance tests and the results were interpreted.