See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/275104181

Correlations between direct and indirect strength test methods

Article  in  International Journal of Mining Science and Technology · April 2015

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijmst.2015.03.005

CITATIONS READS

30 7,528

2 authors, including:

Pedram Roghanchi
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology
56 PUBLICATIONS   410 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Assessing, Modeling, and Cooling Underground Workings in Deep and Hot Mines View project

Development of Heat management policy for underground metal mines View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Pedram Roghanchi on 17 October 2017.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 25 (2015) 355–360

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

International Journal of Mining Science and Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijmst

Correlations between direct and indirect strength test methods

Kallu Raj ⇑, Roghanchi Pedram
Department of Mining Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The difficulties associated with performing direct compression strength tests on rocks lead to the devel-
Received 15 September 2014 opment of indirect test methods for the rock strength assessment. Indirect test methods are simple, more
Received in revised form 10 November 2014 economical, less time-consuming, and easily adaptable to the field. The main aim of this study was to
Accepted 12 December 2014
derive correlations between direct and indirect test methods for basalt and rhyolite rock types from
Available online 15 April 2015
Carlin trend deposits in Nevada. In the destructive methods, point load index, block punch index, and
splitting tensile strength tests are performed. In the non-destructive methods, Schmidt hammer and
Keywords:
ultrasonic pulse velocity tests are performed. Correlations between the direct and indirect compression
Uniaxial compression strength test
Indirect strength test methods
strength tests are developed using linear and nonlinear regression analysis methods. The results show
Correlation that the splitting tensile strength has the best correlation with the uniaxial compression strength.
Regression analysis Furthermore, the Poisson’s ratio has no correlation with any of the direct and indirect test results.
Ó 2015 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of China University of Mining & Technology.

1. Introduction This work is primarily focused on developing correlations

Rock strength assessment is important for the design of struc-
tures in rock as well as for strength classification of rock materials.
Also, most rock mass failure criteria are stress dependent and often
include one or several parameters that describe the rock mass
strength properties. The standard test procedures to determine
intact rock strength parameters usually require very sophisticated
test setup and careful specimen preparation, and the results are
highly sensitive to the style of loading. Therefore, a test procedure
that would use small segments of the core with minimal sample
preparation to determine directly or indirectly the intact rock
strength has always been attractive [1].
Indirect test methods such as point load index (PLI), Schmidt
hammer, ultrasonic pulse velocity, and splitting tensile strength
(Brazilian) tests are widely used because they are simple, more
economical, less time-consuming, and easily adaptable to the field
conditions [2].
Application of standard direct test methods for measuring rock
strength properties is limited by sample availability. In many cases,
core samples having sufficient size cannot be obtained because of
the poor quality of rock. For this reason, many indirect testing
methods and procedures have been developed for unconfined
strength determination.
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 7756826448.
E-mail address: rkallu@unr.edu (R. Kallu).
between the direct and indirect compression test methods for
basalt and rhyolite rock types obtained from Carlin trend deposits
in Nevada. Information about Rock Quality Designation (RQD) and
depth of the core samples is not available. A number of tests, such
as, point load index (PLI), splitting tensile strength (Brazilian Test),
block punch index (BPI), Schmidt hammer test, and ultrasonic
pulse velocity test, were performed on these cores. Also, the effect
of the core specimen length on the Schmidt rebound hammer
(SRH) is studied.
2. Specimen preparation and test procedure
A number of rock samples were prepared from basalt and rhyo-
lite cores obtained from a Nevada gold mine, USA, for various tests.
All attempts were made to obtain index test specimens right above
and/or below the UCS specimens from the core for direct compari-
son. In some cases, one specimen, for either splitting tensile
strength or point load index strength was selected either below
or above the UCS specimen in the core. However, all index test
specimens were cut from the same core and associated with the
closest UCS specimen.
In this study, a servo controlled MTS testing machine was used
to perform 22 splitting tensile tests and 10 uniaxial compression
tests with strain gages [3,4]. A total 143 point load tests, 55 block
punch index tests, and more than 200 Schmidt rebound hammer
tests were performed on prepared specimens. The results of these
standard tests on basalt and rhyolite samples are shown in Table 1.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmst.2015.03.005
2095-2686/Ó 2015 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of China University of Mining & Technology.
356 R. Kallu, P. Roghanchi / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 25 (2015) 355–360

Table 1
Summary of direct and indirect test results.a

Core sample ID 2U 5U 6U 7U 8U 11U W-1U W-2U W-5U W-6U

Rock type Basalt Basalt Rhyolite Rhyolite Rhyolite Rhyolite Basalt Basalt Basalt Basalt
Density 2.54 2.53 2.35 2.47 2.40 2.25 2.55 2.10 2.07 1.96
Uniaxial compression test
UCS (MPa) 212.89 375.62 170.68 199.99 214.67 91.58 215.39 107.67 39.08 39.59
Young’s modulus (GPa) 59.47 62.23 42.04 55.39 48.80 28.81 45.81 28.95 17.40 18.12
Poisson’s ratio 0.24 0.25 0.18 0.26 0.19 0.20 0.18 0.18
Average splitting tensile strength (MPa) 14.90 (2) 29.35 (1) 16.92 (3) 22.19 (1) 26.00 (1) 7.50 (3) 32.23 (2) 12.73 (2) 9.37 (2) 5.18 (2)
Average point load index (MPa) 1.8 (12) 1.64 (14) 1.99 (9) 0.97 (13) 2.64 (11) 1.84 (13) 0.49 (12) 0.36 (11)
Ultrasonic pulse velocity test
P-wave (m/s) 5220 5320 4901 5089 4979 3812 4477 4463 3134 3250
Young’s modulus (GPa) 54.57 38.71 35.84 46.81 31.81 25.40 32.58 29.44 16.23 16.32
Poisson’s ratio 0.38 0.35 0.38 0.28 0.34 0.32 0.27 0.28
SRH number 50 44 46 53 50 48 50 27 18 18
Average block punch index (MPa) 16.75 (5) 16.63 (7) 34.54 (5) 38.68 (6) 6.79 (5) 18.09 (6) 8.17 (8) 2.54 (9) 2.73 (4)
a
The number in braces indicates the number of test for each core section.

2.1. Ultrasonic pulse velocity test 70

60
Ultrasonic pulse velocity testing is a useful and reliable 50
nondestructive method for assessing the mechanical properties 40

of rock, such as, the modulus of elasticity and the compressive
strength. The velocity of ultrasonic pulses traveling in a solid mate-
rial depends on the density and elastic properties of that material.
The quality of some materials is sometimes related to their elastic
stiffness so that measurement of ultrasonic pulse velocity in such
materials can often be used to indicate their quality as well as to
determine elastic properties [5]. The ultrasonic pulse velocity test
was performed on ten prepared UCS specimens based on the
ASTM D2845 [6].
2.2. Schmidt rebound hammer (SRH) test
Schmidt hammer has been used worldwide as an index test for
a quick rock strength and deformability characterization due to its
rapidity and easiness in execution, simplicity, portability, low cost
and non-destructiveness. The Schmidt hammer was originally
developed for measuring the strength of hardened concrete but it
can also be correlated with rock compressive strength according
to Miller and Barton and Choubey [7,8]. The principle of the test
is based on the absorption of part of the spring-released energy
through plastic deformation of the rock surface while the remain-
ing elastic energy causes the actual rebound of the hammer.
In this study, some of the prepared UCS specimens did not meet
the ASTM standard for Schmidt rebound hammer test [4]. In order
to assess the effect of the length on the SRH value, HQ (63.39 mm
diameter) core samples having sample lengths of 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12,
15, and 20 cm from three different rocks are prepared. In this
study, the Schmidt hammer tests are performed according to both
ASTM standard and ISRM suggested methods using L-type Schmidt
hammer with impact energy of 0.735 N m [9,10]. Figs. 1 and 2
below show SRH test results for various core lengths. SRH values
70
60
50
40
SRH
SRH
30
SH-1
20 SH-2
10 SH-3
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22
Length (cm)
Fig. 2. Core sample length vs. SRH value based on ISRM suggested method.
initially decreased significantly with the increase in specimen size
from 3 cm to 5 cm. and for specimen sizes beyond 5 cm SRH values
increased quickly and reached near steady values for specimens
longer than 12 cm. From these test results it is reasonable to
assume that, for HQ (63.39 mm) core samples, the effect of the
specimen length on the SRH values is not significant for specimens
longer than 12 cm in length.
As per ASTM suggested method, a total of 10 SRH readings were
chosen randomly from the total readings. If the difference between
a reading and average of ten reading was more than seven units,
that reading was discarded, and the average of the remaining read-
ings was determined. As per ISRM suggested method an average of
20 readings is taken on each specimen.
2.3. Splitting tensile strength (Brazilian) test
The Brazilian test, as described in the ASTM D-3967 standard, is
a convenient and indirect test method for estimating tensile
strength of rock [3]. It has been found that a rock core about as long
as its diameter will split along the diameter and parallel to the
cylinder axis when loaded on its side in a compression machine
[11]. The reason for this can be demonstrated by examining the
stress inside a disk loaded at opposite sides of a diametric plane
[11]. Theoretically, the tensile failure occurs along the loaded
diameter, splitting the disk (or cylinder) into two halves.
However, in many cases, the fractures do not go through the center

and separate the disk in two halves as the simple theory predicts. A
30
SH-1 total of 22 splitting tensile strength tests were performed on MTS
20 SH-2 machine in the laboratory.
10 SH-3
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 2.4. Point load index (PLI) test
Length (cm)
In the point load test, a rock is loaded between hardened steel
Fig. 1. Core sample length vs. SRH value based on ASTM suggested method. cones, causing failure by the development of tensile cracks parallel
 R. Kallu, P. Roghanchi / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 25 (2015) 355–360 357

to the axis of loading [11]. Tests are done on pieces of drill core at 180
least 1.4 times as long as the diameter. In practice there is a 160
strength/size effect; so a correction must be made to reduce results 140

Stress (MPa)
to a common size [12]. Although shortcomings related to this 120
method have been reported in many papers, it is still being used 100
80 R-1-Axial
as an indirect method to estimate UCS [13,14]. A total of 143 point
60 R-1-Circ
load tests have been performed as per ASTM standard D-5731 [15].
40 R-2-Circ
The specimens were tested in diametral, axial, and irregular config- R-2-Axial
20
urations. A total of 43 diametral, 25 axial, and 105 irregular point 0
load tests were performed. As per the ASTM standard method, test -0.002 0 0.002 0.004 0.006
found invalid were rejected and therefore reducing the total num-
Strain
ber of valid point load tests to 95.
Fig. 3. Stress–strain graph for uniaxial compression strength test for specimen 6U.

2.5. Block punch index (BPI) test

Table 2
Block Punch Index test is relatively new compression index test
Error calculation method for three Young’s modulus for test specimen 6U.
method, in which small segment of core with minimal sample pre-
paration is subjected to an increasing load until the middle part of Young’s modulus Logarithmic standard deviation, error (b)
calculation method
the specimen is punched out. The BPI test is intended as an index Young’s Slope of lateral Poisson’s
test for the strength classification of rock materials and can be cor- modulus (GPa) curve (GPa) ratio
related with the UCS [1]. Schrier obtained high correlations Tangent modulus 0.120 0.085 0.036
between UCS, splitting tensile strength, and BPI test results from Secant modulus 0.113 0.064 0.049
Average modulus 0.108 0.110 0.002
a limited number of specimens from sedimentary and metamor-
phic rock types [12]. Ulusay and Gokceoglu used the BPI test exten-
sively to assess the size effect, strength anisotropy and its possible
use in rock engineering [16,17].
As per the ISRM suggested method for block punch index test, 3. Correlations between the direct and indirect compression
the specimen should be broken into three parts: the two ends strength test methods
which are fixed in the apparatus and the band which is punched
out, and ‘‘the test should be rejected as invalid if parallel vertical It is important to study if an indirect test method is applicable
fracture planes are either absent or not fully developed or cross to particular rock types and/or project. For example, the block
joints develop’’ [1,12]. A total of more than 55 block punch index punch index (BPI) test method is an easy and economical test
tests have been performed on the prepared specimens as per which has been developed as an indirect strength test. The BPI test
ISRM suggested method. is applicable to relatively weak rock where it is not possible to get a
core specimen long enough for direct compression strength test-
ing. On the other hand, the point load index (PLI) test is not suit-
2.6. Uniaxial Compressive Strength (UCS) test able for weak rock strength assessment. Further, for very strong
rocks, the point load test may not be an ideal choice as there is a
The UCS is an important input parameter in rock mass classifi- possibility to damage the point load test machine. A similar lim-
cations. Unconfined compression test is the most frequently used itation exists for the Schmidt hammer test. Schmidt hammer is
strength test for rocks; however, it is not simple to perform prop- not recommended to use as an indirect test method for evaluation
erly and results can vary as procedures are varied. The test speci- of intact rock strength for weak rocks. So, it is important to study
men should be a rock cylinder of length-to-diameter ratio in the how the indirect test methods can be related to the actual strength
range of 2–2.5 with flat, smooth, and parallel ends cut perpendicu- of the intact rock.
larly to the cylinder axis. Test procedures are provided in ASTM D- Based on this study, different correlations have been proposed
2938 standard [18]. for basalt and rhyolite rock types based on different direct and
To calculate the elastic properties of the intact rock sample (E indirect test methods or procedures. Simple linear and power-
and m), the slope of axial and lateral stress–strain curves are mea- law regression types are used to develop the correlations between
sured based on the methods suggested by ASTM standard [19]. the direct and indirect test results. To evaluate the performance of
Two sets of strain rosettes were bonded to each sample with each regression equation, coefficient of correlation (R2), variance
180° angle to each other. The value of the Young’s modulus and accounted for (VAF), logarithmic standard deviation (b), root mean
Poisson’s ratio is calculated using three methods as follows: tan- square error (RMSE) and mean absolute error (MAE) were calcu-
gent modulus, at a stress level at 50% of the maximum stress; lated [20]. The logarithmic standard deviation (b) and root mean
secant modulus, from 5% of maximum stress to 95% maximum square error (RMSE) are frequently used to measure the differences
stress; average modulus, slope of the straight line portion of the between values predicted by a model or an estimator and the val-
stress–strain curve (with the r = 0.95). ues actually observed. Mean absolute error (MAE) is a quantity
The elastic properties are calculated based on average stress– used to measure how close forecasts or predictions are to the even-
strain data from two strain rosettes. As a benchmark for error cal- tual outcomes.
culation, the elastic properties are calculated based on the average   
v arðAimeas  Aipred
stress–strain values from the two strain rosettes. A comparison VAF ¼ 1  ð1Þ
between the errors of those three methods indicates that the
v arðAimeas Þ
‘‘Average Modulus for the Linear Portion of Axial Stress–Strain vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
u n   2
Curve’’ is the best method for Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio u 1 X Aimeas
b¼t ln ð2Þ
calculations. Fig. 3 and Table 2 show the error calculation for each n  1 i¼1 Aipred
method of elastic properties calculations for specimen 6U.
358 R. Kallu, P. Roghanchi / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 25 (2015) 355–360

Table 3
Correlations between direct and indirect strength test methods, and young’s modulus.

Correlation R2 b VAF MAE RMSE Comment

0.57
E = 2.17(UCS) 0.99 0.04 0.99 1.27 1.59 E in GPa and UCS in MPa
UCS = 0.25(SRH)1.77 0.88 0.31 0.58 36.17 81.03 UCS in MPa
UCS = 6.75(BRZ)1.08 0.80 0.37 0.74 39.07 54.36 UCS and BRZ in MPa
ln(UCS) = 3.94ln(P-wave)  28.12 0.92 0.23 0.84 32.37 42.96 UCS in MPa and P-wave in m/s
UCS = 90.14(Is(50))0.92 0.91 0.22 0.84 20.69 28.05 UCS and Is(50) in MPa
ln(E) = 0.43(ln(Is(50)))1.06 0.86 0.17 0.79 4.32 5.64 E in GPa and Is(50) in MPa
E = 2.17(BRZ)0.61 0.78 0.22 0.79 5.7 6.86 E in GPa and BRZ in MPa
BRZ = 11(Is(50)) 0.81 0.37 0.81 3.67 4.19 BRZ and Is(50) in MPa
BRZ = 0.15(SRH)1.33 0.83 0.32 0.71 4.52 6.11 BRZ in MPa
E = 32.9ln(SRH)  77.53 0.82 0.14 0.82 4.37 6.12 E in GPa
ln(EUCS) = 1.3ln(EP-wave)  0.8 0.91 0.14 0.87 4.33 5.54 EUCS and EP-wave in GPa
UCS = 23.49(BPI10,50)0.68 0.91 0.21 0.69 33.46 36.82 UCS and BPI10,50 in MPa
BRZ = 4.19(BPI10,50)0.47 0.82 0.22 0.91 1.98 2.12 BRZ and BPI10,50 in MPa
E = 12.20(BPI10,50)0.44 0.89 0.15 0.76 4.79 4.52 E in GPa and BPI10,50 in MPa

1X n
MAE ¼ jAimeas  Aipred j ð3Þ 400
n i¼1
UCS = 6.75(BRZ)1.08
300

UCS (MPa)
200
vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
u n
u1 X 2 100
RMSEðAÞ ¼ t Aimeas  Aipred ð4Þ
n i¼1
0
0 10 20 30 40
BRZ (MPa)
where Aimeas is the ith measured element; Aipred is the ith predicted
Fig. 6. Relationship between uniaxial compression strength (UCS) and splitting
element and n is the number of data set.
tensile strength.
Table 3 shows the correlations between direct and indirect test
results. In these equations, E stands for Young’s modulus; UCS is
uniaxial compression strength; BRZ represents splitting tensile
strength; SHR is Schmidt rebound hammer number; Is(50) stands 7
for point load index; and BPI10,50 is block punch index. Figs. 4–17 6
Ln(UCS (MPa))

show the test results and the relationships between various 5

parameters. 4
3
2
ln(UCS) = 3.94ln(P-wave) - 28.12
1
70
0
Young`s modulus (GPa)

60 E = 2.17(UCS)0.57
8.00 8.20 8.40 8.60 8.80
50
Ln (P-wave (m/s))
40
30 Fig. 7. Relationship between uniaxial compression strength (UCS) and P-wave.
20
10
0
0 100 200 300 400 250
Uniaxila compression strength (MPa) 200
UCS (MPa)

Fig. 4. Relationship between uniaxial compression strength (UCS) and Young’s 150
modulus.
100
50 UCS = 90.14(Is(50)) 0.92
400 0
Uniaxila compression

UCS = 0.25SRH1.77 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0

strength (MPa)

300 Is(50) (MPa)

200 Fig. 8. Relationship between uniaxial compression strength (UCS) and point load
index.
100

0
4. Discussion
0 20 40 60
SRH
Based on the experimental results, fourteen empirical equations
Fig. 5. Relationship between uniaxial compression strength (UCS) and SRH. are proposed for basalt and rhyolite rock types based on different
 R. Kallu, P. Roghanchi / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 25 (2015) 355–360 359

4.0 4.5

Ln (EUCS) (GPa)
4
3.5
Ln (E) GPa 3.5
3.0 3
2.5 ln (EUCS) = 1.3ln(EP-wave) - 0.8
2.5
ln(E) = 0.43(ln(Is(50)))1.06 2
2 2.5 3 3.5 4
2.0
5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 9.0 Ln (EP-wave) (GPa)
Ln (Is(50)) (kPa)
Fig. 14. Relationship between EUCS and EP-wave.

Fig. 9. Relationship between Young’s modulus and point load index.

direct and indirect test methods. There are many correlations

available between direct and indirect test methods for various rock
70 types and vary in a wide range. For example, the ratio between uni-
60 E = 6.51(BRZ)0.61 axial compression strength and point load index varies from 8.6 to
50 29 (zero intercept) [21]. Another example is the ratio of uniaxial
E (GPa)

40 compression strength to splitting tensile strength in which the

30 ratio may vary from 10 to 50 [22].
20
In this paper, we propose a series of correlations between uni-
10
axial compression strength and other indirect test methods (see
0
0 10 20 30 40 Figs. 4–14) based on limited test results and examine the equations
to evaluate their performance. These equations can be compared to
BRZ (MPa)
other empirical equations. For example, for core sample ID ‘W-1U’
Fig. 10. Relationship between Young’s modulus and splitting tensile strength. (UCS = 215.39 MPa, Is(50) = 2.64 MPa), the proposed equation in this
study has better performance (UCS = 215.39 MPa) than the equa-
tion correlating UCS to point load index developed by Ulusay
40 et al. (UCS = 44.64 MPa) [23]. On the other hand, Kahraman et al.
BRZ = 11(Is (50)) found a better correlation of UCS with splitting tensile strength test
BRZ (MPa)

30
[24]. For instance, for core sample ID ‘‘6U’’ (UCS = 170.68 MPa,
20 BRZ = 16.92 MPa), equation by Kahraman et al. predicts a UCS
value of 179.52 MPa and our equation predicts a value of
10
143.21 MPa [24].
0 Further, this study includes BPI test (see Figs. 15–17), a rela-
0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 tively new indirect test method, and proposes correlations with
Is (50) (MPa) other testing methods based on fairly strong rock types. Previous
studies by other researchers were mainly focused on weak to mod-
Fig. 11. Relationship between splitting tensile strength and point load index.
erately weak rock types [1,25].

35 400
Uniaxial compression

UCS = 23.49 (BPI10,50) 0.68

30
strength (MPa)

BRZ = 0.15SRH1.33 300 R² = 0.91

BRZ (MPa)

25
20 200
15
10 100
5
0 0
0 20 40 60 0 20 40 60
SRH BPI10,50 (MPa)

Fig. 12. Relationship between splitting tensile strength and SRH. Fig. 15. Correlation of uniaxial compression strength with block punch index.

70 35
Splitting tensile strength

60 30
E = 32.90ln(SRH)-77.53 25
50
E (GPa)

40 20
30 15
20 10 BRZ = 4.19 (BPI10,50) 0.47
10 5 R² = 0.82
0 0
0 20 40 60 0 20 40 60
SRH BPI10,50 (MPa)

Fig. 13. Relationship between Young’s modulus and SRH. Fig. 16. Correlation of splitting tensile strength with block punch index.
360 R. Kallu, P. Roghanchi / International Journal of Mining Science and Technology 25 (2015) 355–360
70
Young's modulus (GPa)
60
50
40
30
20 E = 12.20 (BPI10,50) 0.44
10 R² = 0.89
0 Geol Environ 2008;67(1):17–22.
0 20 40
BPI10,50 (MPa)
Fig. 17. Correlation of Young’s modulus with block punch index.
Validity of any empirical correlation is limited to rock type, the
procedure of performing the experiment, and the number of the
tests. The performance of the proposed empirical equations in this
paper can be further improved if more experimental test data are
available.
5. Conclusions
Based on the laboratory test results on rock samples from basalt
and rhyolite rock types, a number of correlations between the
direct and indirect compression strength test results were pro-
posed. Performance of the each correlation has been measured
using linear and nonlinear regression analyses. It is observed from
these studies that the uniaxial compression strength has the best
correlation with the splitting tensile strength. On the other hand,
the Poisson’s ratio has no correlation with any of the direct and
indirect test results. On another note on SRH test results, for HQ
(63.39 mm) core samples, the effect of the specimen length on
the SRH values is insignificant for specimens longer than 12 cm
in length.
Acknowledgments
The authors are thankful to CDC/NIOSH for their partial funding
of this work. The authors gratefully acknowledge Dr. Jaak JK
Daemen, emeritus professor at the University of Nevada, Reno.
References
[1] Ulusay R, Gokceoglu C, Sulukcu S. Draft ISRM suggested method for
determining block punch strength index (BPI). Int J Rock Mech Min Sci
2001;38(8):1113–20.
View publication stats
[2] Aksoy CO, Ozacar V, Demirel N, Ozer SC, Safak S. Determination of
instantaneous breaking rate by geological strength index, block punch index,
and power of impact hammer for various rock mass conditions. J Tunnel
Undergr Space Technol 2011;26(4):534–40.
[3] ASTM. Standard test method for splitting tensile strength of intact rock core
specimens. ASTM Stand D3967-08; 2008.
[4] ASTM. Standard test method for determination of rock hardness by rebound
Hammer method. ASTM Stand. D5873-00; 2005.
[5] Sharma PK, Singh TN. A correlation between P-wave velocity, impact strength
index, slake durability index, and uniaxial compressive strength. J Bull Eng
60 [6] ASTM. Standard test method for laboratory determination of pulse velocities
and ultrasonic elastic constants of rock. ASTM Stand. D2845-08; 2008.
[7] Miller RP. Engineering classification and index properties for intact
rock. Illinois: University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign Campus); 1965.
[8] Barton N, Choubey V. The shear strength of rock joints in theory and practice.
Rock Mech 1977;10(1–2):1–54.
[9] Aydin A. ISRM suggested method for determination of the Schmidt hammer
rebound hardness: revised version. Int J Rock Mech Min Sci
2009;46(3):627–34.
[10] Aydin A, Basu A. The Schmidt hammer in rock material characterization. Eng
Geol 2005;81(1):1–14.
[11] Goodman RE. Introduction to rock mechanics. New York: Wiley; 1989.
[12] Schrier JS. The block punch index test. Bull Int Assoc Eng Geol – Bull l’Assoc Int
Géol l’Ingénieur 1998;38(1):121–6.
[13] Deere DU, Miller RP. Engineering classification and index properties for intact
rock. Urbana: Illinois University at Urbana Department of Civil Engineering;
1966.
[14] Fener M, Kahraman S, Bilgil A, Gunaydin O. A comparative evaluation of
indirect methods to estimate the compressive strength of rocks. Rock Mech
Rock Eng 2005;38(4):329–43.
[15] ASTM. Standard method for determination of the point load strength index of
rock. ASTM Stand. D5731-08; 2008.
[16] Ulusay R, Gokceoglu C. The modified block punch index test. Can Geotech J
2011;34(6):991–1001.
[17] Ulusay R, Gokceoglu C. An experiment study on the size effect in block punch
index test. Int J Rock Mech Min Sci 1998;35(4):628–9.
[18] ASTM. Standard test method for preparing rock core as cylindrical test
specimens and verifying conformance to dimensional and shape tolerances.
ASTM Stand. D4543-08; 2008.
[19] ASTM. Standard method for compressive strength and elastic moduli of intact
rock core specimens under varying states of stress and temperatures. ASTM
Stand. D5873-10; 2010.
[20] Tzamos S, Sofianos AI. Extending the Q System’s Prediction of support in
tunnel employing Fuzzy logic and extra parameters. Int J Rock Mech Min Sci
2006;43(6):938–49.
[21] Kahraman S, Gunaydin O, Fener M. The effect of porosity on the relation
between uniaxial compressive strength and point load index. Int J Rock Mech
Min Sci 2005;42(4):584–9.
[22] Vutukuri VS, Lama RD, Saluja SS. Handbook on mechanical properties of
rocks. Clausthal: Trans Tech Publications; 1974.
[23] Ulusay R, Türeli K, Ider MH. Prediction of engineering properties of a selected
litharenite sandstone from its petrographic characteristics using correlation
and multivariate statistical techniques. Eng Geol J 1994;38(1):135–57.
[24] Kahraman S, Fener M, Kozman E. Predicting the compressive and tensile
strength of rocks from indentation hardness index. J South Afr Inst Min Metall
2012;112(5):331–9.
[25] Sulukcu S, Ulusay R. Evaluation of the block punch index test with particular
reference to the size effect, failure mechanism and its effectiveness in
predicting rock strength. Int J Rock Mech Min Sci 2001;38(8):1091–111.