Hard Rock Hydraulics

Born in 1935, Fernando Olavo Franciss grew up in Rio de Janeiro and was credited as a Civil Engineer by the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1958. During the period 1959-1961, he was trained by the late and distinguished Prof. Reynold Barbier at the Institut Dolomieu of the University of Grenoble, France, and was licensed on Applied Geology by the same university. Ten years later, in 1970, he obtained his doctoral degree from this university.

As a leading rock engineer, he has gathered a lifetime of international experience in civil engineering practice, often crossing with other fields such as engineering geology, underground mining, and oil and cooled LPG reservoir engineering. From 1964 to 1980, he worked as a part-time professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. From 1964 to 1991 he was engaged at Sondotecnica, a reputed Brazilian Consulting Bureau. Since then, he worked as an independent consultant. During his professional life, he developed and employed finite-difference matrix-algorithms, based on a tensor approach, to model the hydraulic and hydrothermal behavior of complex fractured rock masses.

Many now well-known Brazilian experts in civil, earth, rock, and water engineering start their professional career closely working with Prof. Franciss, a fact that pleased him very much. During his career, Dr. Franciss has had the chance to devote part of his time to investigate the hydraulics of fractured rocks related to civil works, mining, oil and gas storage caverns, and interactions of hydrothermal resources with dam reservoirs.

He is a member of the Brazilian Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, the Brazilian Society for Engineering and Environmental Geology, the Brazilian National Academy of Engineering, and the International Society for Rock Mechanics. He has won many prestigious awards in Brazil. He has written several papers and some books: 1976, "Permeability of Rock Masses Determined from Integral Samples," in Structural and Geotechnical Mechanics, Editor W. J. Hall, Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, (co-authored with Eng. Manoel Rocha); 1980, Hydraulica de Meios Permeaveis, Interciencia, Rio de Janeiro; 1985, Soil and Rock Hydraulics - Fundamentals, Numerical Methods, and Techniques of Electrical Analogs, A. A. Balkema, Rotterdam; 1989, Tuneis em Rochas Brandas, Interciencia, Rio de Janeiro; 1994, Weak Rock Tunneling, A. A. Balkema, Rotterdam; 2009, Fractured Rock Hydraulics, Taylor & Francis Group/CRC Press; 2019, Gestao de Riscos - Empreendimentos Complexos (co-authored with Eng. Andre Assis and Eng. Roque Rabechini), Editora CRV, Parana, Brasil.