Department of Mining Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran:

S. H. Hoseinie, Head of the Mining Machinery Laboratory, PhD, hadi.hoseinie@iut.ac.ir

Rock engineering studies are originally challenging in mining and construction projects due to the high level of uncertainties and a wide range of variations in the rock mass and ground conditions. In the mining sector, rock mechanics is in close interaction with mine operation and production systems, which lead the engineers to a complex multi-attribute decision-making process. Beyond the all mechanical and production goals and restrictions, safety and sustainability are also two strategic criteria which should be considered in advanced academic or industrial rock engineering projects. The reviewing of the mentioned issue of “Gornyi Zhurnal” reveals that all published articles could be mainly categorized in the following topics:
· Geological and geotechnical analysis and modeling
· Physical and mechanical properties of rocks
· Seismic and earthquake
· Stability analysis
· Risk and safety
Some of the articles could be categorized in more than one topic, and some are genuinely focused on a unique topic. The issue covers most of the new and advanced applied rock engineering topics in the recent decade. From this point of view, the journal presents a wide range of fantastic scientific research outputs, which could help develop similar methodologies and applications in many case study mines by the journal readers. The results of the statistical reviewing of all the articles are presented as a graphical word cloud counter in Figure. The figure reveals that the presented researches have focused mainly on rock engineering applications in mines, especially underground mining. As the contents of the issue show, regardless of the other mining countries, Russian researchers are interested in applied rock mechanics and analysis of rock mass characteristics effects on mines design, stability, safety, support, and risk, which are valuable for mining companies and academic developments. The authors of the issue are from all over Russia and from mainly academic institutes in combination with some co-authors from the industrial sector. The participation of young researches along with wellknown rock mechanics and mining professors provides an attractive view about the considerable human resources in the mining and rock engineering field in Russia, which is known as a dominant factor for boosting the advanced researches in this field. If we look for the strengths of the current researches in rock engineering in Russia, we could find out that the researches are presenting a right combination of numerical modeling, field measurement, laboratory investigations, and mathematical analysis. The detailed analysis to get a holistic, integrated solution for optimization of the mines is a clear base for most of the published articles. As it seems, the Russian researchers are developing interdisciplinary mining optimization solutions from surface mines to deep underground mines. Considering the current international rock engineering research topics, a severe lack is realized in the presented issue. No research has aimed to study the rock and machine interface or excavation engineering. Since, in the future, mining will be partially or fully automated, the machine and rock interaction is one of the fast-developing research fields in rock engineering, which is not considered in the issue seriously. Material detection, measurement while drilling, acoustic emission, wear reduction of advanced mining tools are the topics which Russian researchers could develop valuable ideas to get suitable outputs due to strong scientific and industrial background. The other main lack of published articles is “coal mechanics,” which other mining countries such as Australia, China, Poland and USA extensively work on them, and Russia has high technical and academic potentials too. Nevertheless, it seems researches are less supported in this field in Russia. Finally, the review of the current issue of “Gornyi Zhurnal” entitled “Modern Problems of Rock Mechanics in Russia” reveals that the Russian researchers carry out well-organized, multi-disciplinary, and applied rock engineering researches with the high quality and clear focus on mining applications. The study of the published articles is recommended for all academic researchers and industrial applicants in mining and consulting companies.