Micromechanical basis for shear strength of rock discontinuities

Interface Strength of Rock Discontinuities Based on Experiments Conducted Using the Direct Shear Box

........................................................................................................................................... vi Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ vii

Shear Strength of Rock Joints Based on Quantified Surface Description

One of the primary objectives of this work is to better understand the frictional behavior of joints under shear loads, including the creation of damage zones. Discontinuities have an important influence on the deformational behavior of rock systems. The choice of a general criterion to determine the shear strength of rough rock joints is a general problem that has been investigated for many ye...

An unload-induced direct-shear model for granular gouge friction in rock discontinuities.

The experimental study introduces an unload-induced direct-shear model to investigate the frictional slip of a layer of simulated granular gouges induced by the combination of a decreasing normal stress and a constant shear stress. A frictional equilibrium state of the gouge layer is initially established under fixed normal and shear stresses. The normal stress is proposed to decrease at a cons...

Shear Strength of Fiber-Reinforced Clayey Sands

Consolidated-drained triaxial compression tests were conducted to compare the stress-strain and volume change response of sands and clayey sands reinforced with discrete randomly distributed poly-propylene fibers. The influence of various test parameters such as fiber content (0.0%, 0.5% and 1.0% by weight), clay content (0%, 10% and 20% by weight), relative density (50% and 90%) and confining ...

Shear Strength of Unfilled and Rough Rock Joints in Sliding Stability Analyses of Concrete Dams