Some technical difficulties caused by the rock pressure are firstly reported in late 19th century in German coal field. In the field of tunneling, the technical problem concerned with heavy load of tunnel support are observed and discussed in the last decade of 19th century.
However, from the scientific point of view, it had been difficult to explain the remarkable difference between the overburden pressure and the load of tunnel support as well as the increasing convergence of drift with time elapsed.
In early 20th century, it was recognized that the zone of loose, fractured or/and yield rock around the drift plays some important roles on the convergence and support load, both of which increase generally with time elapsed.
In 1930's, the theory of elasticity and plasticity was applied to make clear phenomena caused by the rock pressure. However, the theory did not succeed to explain the time-dependent behaviour concerned with rock pressure. Then, the theory of linear visco-elasticity was applied to explain the time-dependent behaviour of rock mass around the drift.
In early 1960's, a new theory called as NATM was proposed and applied for tunneling. This theory explicitly indicated the load bearing ability of rock mass around the drift and the dependence of the final support load on the setting time of support.
In late 1960's, a method of numerical analysis called as FEM was applied to various problems concerned with the rock pressure. Application of this method made possible to analyze the stress concentration and yield zone in the rock mass around various cross-sections of the drift. In 1970's, furthermore, FEM was applied to analyze such three dimensional problems as the convergence in the vicinity of the driving face of drift.
