Soft rock pillars can be designed by several methods available in the mining literature. All of these methods include the effect of shape, or geometry, on the average strength of specimens and pillars. All of the pillar design methods include some measurement of the strength of specimens of the pillar rock. The most common rock specimen strength property measured is the unconfined compressive strength. However, the average strength of triaxially confined rock specimens is much greater than the unconfined specimen strength, which can be more important to pillar strength. The estimation of the strength of a pillar is complicated by the decrease in rock specimen strength with increase in specimen size.