Joint rock dynamics in deep rock engineering mainly refers to rock dynamics related to jointed rock mass caused by seismic activity and dynamic disturbances in mining and tunnel engineering. As shallow underground resources are gradually exhausted, more engineering projects need to be constructed in the deep underground, and so rock mass engineering in the deep underground is an important trend for future development. With the continuous increase of development depth, the stress level of rock mass increases continuously, which makes the engineering environment more challenging.

High rock stress frequently makes a variety of high energy disasters occur, such as rock burst, fault slip, or large deformation of rock mass. These disasters pose a major threat to the stability of surrounding rocks during construction. Natural rock mass is composed of rock joint structure and blocks. Under the influence of deep surrounding rock stress, rock properties will change in two aspects. Firstly, a large number of test results show that shallow rock mass properties are significantly affected by the number of joints and joint geometry shapes, but under the influence of high stress, the functional relationship between rock mass stability and joint fissures is shown to be more complex. Secondly, as the main component of rock mass, relatively complete rock blocks gradually show plastic shape under the influence of deep high stress, and mechanical properties also show obvious nonlinear changes. Traditional mechanical theories of shallow surrounding rock cannot effectively explain this mechanical behavior. Therefore, with the increasing depth of underground space development, jointed rocks are inevitably subject to dynamic disturbances caused by earthquakes, mining activities, or fault slips. In recent years, increasing engineering disasters are increasingly occurring in deep rock, posing a major threat to the stability of surrounding rocks during excavation. However, due to the complexity of deep joint rock under high stress, the study of the mechanical characteristics of joint rock masses is still challenging. Therefore, to ensure the safety of underground space construction while considering dynamic disasters and energy storage of surrounding rocks, it is of great importance to further our understanding of these mechanical characteristics of deep joint rock under excavation.

This Special Issue aims at presenting recent advances in studies on the mechanical characteristics of deep joint rock under high stress. This Special Issue will collect high-quality original research articles and state-of-the-art review papers which reflect the progress in dynamic failure characteristics of jointed rock mass, rockburst mechanisms, energy characteristics of deep jointed rocks, rock mass quality, and nonlinear behavior of deep jointed rocks. Submissions can be based on theoretical and numerical studies as well as laboratory experiments.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Deformation behavior of jointed rock mass under dynamic loads
• Dynamic characteristics of jointed rock mass under high stress
• Numerical experiments in deep jointed rock mass
• Energy dissipation characteristics of deep jointed rock mass
• Nonlinear behavior of deep jointed rock mass
• Quality evaluation of deep jointed rock mass