Important announcement

Dear visitor,

Please note that this OpenCourseWare platform will be replaced at the end of 2026 by a new platform (under the same url ocw.tudelft.nl).

Courses and their contents that are currently available the platform will partly be migrated. URL’s for this content will change and content might be unavailable for some time. In addition, some courses will not be available anymore.

If you are linking to specific courses on this platform (for instance for your students), please take timely measures to avoid problems with access. Possible actions are:

  • Download the materials to your local platform (laptop, server)
  • For educators only (including TU Delft lecturers): Contact us at ocw@tudelft.nl and inform us what course you are using in what context (institute, program, period of use, number of students). We will research (in collaboration with the authors of the course) and decide if we will migrate the course, and if yes, can supply you with a new url.

Thank you.

Home Courses Principles of rock mechanics Course materials Readings Chapter 08: Viscosity and Flow Laws

Chapter 08: Viscosity and Flow Laws

Course subject(s) Part 1: Mechanics and Rheology

The discussion on flow started in the previous chapter. The basic understandings of the different creep regimes will now be elaborated upon by introducing creep laws to quantify the rock flow.

In order to do so, first the quantity of viscosity is explained. After that, description of rock flow starts with some visco-elasticity models for rock deformation. The flow description is continued with non-newtonian creep, strain softening and strain-rate softening. Resulting are flow curves, creep laws and lithosperic strength curves which are presented in paragraphs 6 to 9. The chapter is concluded with geological applications of lithosperic strength diagrams.

PDF Chapter 8
Creative Commons License
Principles of rock mechanics by TU Delft OpenCourseWare is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://ocw.tudelft.nl/courses/principles-of-rock-mechanics/.
Back to top
[sg_popup id=6]