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Effect of Boundary Condition on the Shear Behaviour of Rock Joints in the Direct Shear Test

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Abstract

The common method for determination of the mechanical properties of the rock joints is the direct shear test. This paper aims to study the effect of boundary condition on the results of direct shear tests. Experimental studies undertaken in this research showed that the peak shear strength is mostly overestimated. This problem is more pronounced for steep asperities and under high normal stresses. Investigation of the failure mode of these samples showed that tensile cracks are generated at the boundary of sample close to the specimen holders and propagated inside the intact materials. In order to discover the reason of observed failure mechanism in experiments, the direct shear test was simulated using PFC2D. Results of numerical models showed that the gap zone size between the upper and lower specimen holders has a significant effect on the shear mechanism. For the high gap size, stresses concentrate at the vicinity of the tips of specimen holders and result in generation and propagation of tensile cracks inside the intact material. However, by reducing the gap size, stresses are concentrated on asperities, and damage of specimen at its boundary is not observed. Results of this paper show that understanding the shear mechanism of rock joints is an essential step prior to interpreting the results of direct shear tests.

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Notes

  1. In the smooth joint model, bonds between particles which lie along the joint surface are removed and mico-scale slip contacts are applied at these contacts to eliminate the inherent bumpiness between particles. More details about the smooth joint model can be found in (Bahaaddini et al. 2013b, c).

Abbreviations

\(\sigma_{\text{c}}\) :

Uniaxial compressive strength

\(v\) :

Poisson’s ratio

C :

Cohesion of intact rock

m i :

Hoek and Brown parameter

\(\tau\) :

Shear stress

\(\phi_{\mu }\) :

Basic friction angle of joint

i :

Asperity inclination angle

\(c_{\text{j}}\) :

Joint cohesion

\(a_{\text{s}}\) :

Sheared area ratio

n :

Tensile to uniaxial strength ratio

PFC:

Particle flow code

\(E_{\text{c}}\) :

Particle modulus

\(k_{\text{n}}\) :

Particle normal stiffness

\(k_{\text{s}}\) :

Particle shear stiffness

\(\mu_{\text{c}}\) :

Particle coefficient of friction

\(E\) :

Elastic modulus

\(\sigma_{\text{t}}\) :

Tensile strength

\(\phi\) :

Friction angle of intact rock

\(\sigma_{\text{ci}}\) :

Intact rock uniaxial compressive strength

\(\sigma_{\text{n}}\) :

Normal stress

\(\phi_{\text{r}}\) :

Residual friction angle

\(\sigma_{\text{T}}\) :

Transition stress in Patton model

\(\dot{v}\) :

Dilation rate

\(S_{\text{R}}\) :

Shear strength of intact material

\(\sigma_{{{\text{T}}^{*} }}\) :

Transition stress in L&A model

SD:

Standard deviation

\(\overline{E}_{\text{c}}\) :

Parallel bond modulus

\(\overline{k}^{\text{n}}\) :

Parallel bond normal stiffness

\(\overline{k}^{\text{s}}\) :

Parallel bond shear stiffness

\(\phi_{\text{j}}\) :

Smooth joint friction angle

ISRM:

International Society of Rock Mechanics

ASTM:

American Society for Testing and Materials

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to express his gratitude to Dr. Glenn Sharrock and Dr. David Potyondy from Itasca Consulting group for their technical helps.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Higher Education Complex of Zarand, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran

    M. Bahaaddini

  2. School of Mining Engineering, UNSW Australia, Sydney, Australia

    M. Bahaaddini

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  1. M. Bahaaddini
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Correspondence to M. Bahaaddini.

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Bahaaddini, M. Effect of Boundary Condition on the Shear Behaviour of Rock Joints in the Direct Shear Test. Rock Mech Rock Eng 50, 1141–1155 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-016-1157-z

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