The Rock Mechanics laboratory at KMOU was founded by professor Won-Yil Jang back in 1997, and since then it has served to prepare students with solid understanding of rock mechanics, capable to offer practical solutions to daily life engineering problems. In 2019, the laboratory was renamed as the Rock Mechanics and Underground Energy (ROMUE) after Professor Kwang Yeom Kim took office. This change was made due to the incorporation of other research areas that better reflect current national engineering challenges.

The ROMUE laboratory focuses on two main areas. On one hand, we are interested on studying the behavior and mechanics of rock of engineering scale, and on the other, we want to explore alternative energy sources or energy related issues for the future. At the same time, we work on incorporating new technologies that can help us to improve the characterization of rock masses and increase our understanding of its behavior. This will have a great impact during the construction of different projects, as it will enable engineers to make better decisions.

The research projects at ROMUE include:

• Investigation of coupled thermos-hydro-mechanical fracturing process of rock and fault reactivation at depth.
• Nondestructive assessment of characteristics and interaction behavior of Engineering Barriers under repository environments.
• Training program for specialist in Smart Mining.
• Development of Deep Learning model for evaluating the condition of rock excavation surface.
• Feasibility study of Ammonia Underground storage concept.
• Experiments on chemical injection methods to increase soil strength.