A New Direct Shear Apparatus for Rock Joints Specialized in Cyclic Loading

Excerpt

The mechanical behavior of rock joint has always been an important issue in the field of geotechnical practice. Especially, the design of reinforcements and numerical simulation both require a precise and detailed description of the deformation and strength behavior of the rock joint. Direct shear testing is a widely used technique for investigating the mechanical behavior of rock joints. To date, many direct shear apparatuses for concrete and rock joints were developed with their practical application being reported, e.g., Geertsma (2002), Jiang et al. (2004), Wong et al. (2007), Gomez et al. (2008), Kim et al. (2006), Barla et al. (2010), and Ferrero et al. (2010). These apparatuses play important roles in the development of mechanical properties of rock joints. …