The rock mechanics laboratory, housed in a separate building, has a floor space of 258 m2.  Laboratory is equipped with a crane to handle large rock blocks and large scale testing materials. To shape the irregular rock blocks a diamond saw cutting machine is available. Rock cores transferred directly from the field or taken by a stationary drilling machine in the laboratory are dimensioned and prepared for the tests by a special grinding and polishing machine.

A Tinius Olsen 200 ton 4-leg crosshead compression and tension testing machine is used for regular tests on the rocks such as triaxial compression, tension, uniaxial compression and deformability tests in order to determine important mechanical properties such as compressive and tensile strengths, cohesion and internal friction angle, Young Modulus and Poisson’s Ratio. For high precision and advanced applications such as computerized displacement controlled testing and post-failure testing, a 2800 kN MTS 815 Servohydraoluc Testing System is used together with a modern 200 kHz data acquision system Iotech DaqBook 2000X in order to condition and transfer the A/D or D/A signals in and out of the load and displacement transducers and PC's. Other commonly used equipment in the laboratory involves portable shear box and point load index testing arrangements, a motorized controlled velocity shear testing machine, and Schmidt Hammers.

A sliding micrometer and an inclinometer setup are available for field applications such as slope deformation monitoring, and a seismic velocity measurement setup is available to assess the quality of rock masses in situ. Equipment and instrumentation are well beyond the standards for basic tests in rock mechanics. However, lack of highly skilled personnel including research technicians and assistants represents a problem to run the laboratory in a proper way.

1. Rock coring and grinding machines with accessories.
2. Core drill for taking samples from large rocks.
3. Diamond saw.
4. Surface grinder.
5. Iotech DAQBOOK 200kHz PC Based Data Acquisition System
6. 200 Ton Tinius olsen testing machine with accessories.
7. 2800 kN MTS stiff testing machine with accessories.
8. Portable direct shear machine with accessories
9. Motorized Direct shear testing machine with accessories for rock and soil.
10. Triaxial testing cells with accessories.
11. Point load tester.
12. Schmidt hardness tester.
13. Slake durability testing machine.
14. Engineering seismograph with accessories for seismic exploration.             
15. Vibration seismograph
16. Drying oven.
17. Freezing-thawing testing machine.
18. Rock toughness testing machine.
19. Borehole sliding micrometer.
20. Plate bearing testing set up.
21. In situ direct shear test set up.

1. Uniaxial Compressive Strength
2. Unit Weight
3. Porosity
4. Water Content
5. Static Deformability (E, )
6. Post Failure Deformability (Dilation Angle)
7. Triaxial Compression Test         

1. Direct Shear Test                      

1. Freezing and Thawing Strength
2. Direct Tensile Strength
3. Indirect Tensile Strength (Brazillian)
4. Flexural Strength
5. Dynamic Deformability (Vp, Vs)
6. Slake Durability Test
7. Point Load Index Test
8. Toughness (ASTM, TSE)
9. Schmidt Hardness
10. Shore Hardness
11. Blast Preparation

Other Services

1. Rock Mass Classification (per system, per core box)
2. Field Seismic Velocity (P velocity, 2 direction, < 70 m)
3. Field Seismic Velocity (P velocity, 2 direction, > 70 m)
4. Field Seismic Velocity (S velocity, 2 direction, < 50 m)
5. Field Seismic Velocity (S velocity, 2 direction, > 50 m)
6. Coring from Block
7. Core Cutting and Polishing
8. Plate Cutting and Polishing