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Physical Modeling of Shear Behavior of Infilled Rock Joints Under CNL and CNS Boundary Conditions

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Abstract

Despite their frequent natural occurrence, filled discontinuities under constant normal stiffness (CNS) boundary conditions have been studied much less systematically, perhaps because of the difficulties arising from the increased number of variable parameters. Because of the lack of reliable and realistic theoretical or empirical relations and the difficulties in obtaining and testing representative samples, engineers rely on judgment and often consider the shear strength of the infilled material itself as shear strength of rock joints. This assumption leads to uneconomical and also sometimes the unsafe design of underground structures, slopes, rock-socketed piles and foundations. To study the effect of infill on the shear behavior of rock joints, tests were performed on the modeled infilled rock joint having different joint roughness under constant normal load (CNL) and CNS boundary conditions at various initial normal stress and varying thickness of the infilled material. The test results indicate that shear strength decreases with an increase in t/a ratio for both CNL and CNS conditions, but the reduction in shear strength is more for CNL than for CNS condition for a given initial normal stress. The detailed account of the effect of thickness of infilled material on shear and deformation behavior of infilled rock joint is discussed in this paper, and a model is proposed to predict shear strength of infilled rock joint.

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Abbreviations

CNL:

Constant normal load

CNS:

Constant normal stiffness

i :

Asperity angle

i’ infill :

Effective infilled asperity angle

k n :

Stiffness of the surrounding rock mass

LVDT:

Linear variation displacement transducer

P i :

Initial normal stress

P n (t + Δt) :

Normal load at any time interval t + Δt

P n :

Normal stress corresponding to peak shear stress

P n(t) :

Normal load at any time interval t

t/a :

Thickness of infilled to a thickness of asperity ratio

X :

Shear displacement

Y :

Free dilation at any shear deformation

Y′ :

Dilation measured as the average of readings of four normal LVDTs placed on the top of the sample

Y − Y′ :

Dilation resisted by the surrounding rock mass

δ sp :

Shear displacement corresponding to peak shear stress

δ vp :

Dilation corresponding to peak shear stress

σ c :

Uniaxial compressive strength

τ p :

Peak shear stress of unfilled joint

τ pinfill :

Peak shear stress of infilled joint

φ :

Friction angle of infilled joint

φ b :

Basic friction angle

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  1. Amit Kumar Shrivastava

    Present address: Department of Civil Engineering, Delhi Technological University, Delhi, India

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India

    K. Seshagiri Rao

  2. E-11, Sector-18, Rohini, Delhi, 110085, India

    Amit Kumar Shrivastava

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  1. Amit Kumar Shrivastava
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  2. K. Seshagiri Rao
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Correspondence to Amit Kumar Shrivastava.

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Shrivastava, A.K., Rao, K.S. Physical Modeling of Shear Behavior of Infilled Rock Joints Under CNL and CNS Boundary Conditions. Rock Mech Rock Eng 51, 101–118 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-017-1318-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-017-1318-8

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