Measurement of Shearing Characteristics of Granular Materials at Low Stress Levels in a Shear Box

A range of geotechnical applications require measurement of shear strength at effective stresses below those commonly employed in conventional shear testing devices. Of these devices, the shear box testing apparatus is the oldest and remains the most popular for determining the shear strength characteristics of granular materials. The apparatus is, however, generally considered inadequate when testing at low normal stresses because second order frictional effects become significant at these stresses and lead to large errors in the inferred shear and normal loads on the plane of shearing. A number of new, more elaborate, devices have been employed to measure the frictional characteristics of clays at low stress levels (e.g. the Cam-shear and tilt table tests), but these require a high level of expertise to use correctly, and are not readily available in laboratories around the world. In this paper, statics principles are employed to develop a simple means of correcting for the mechanical friction in a shear box. The applicability of the corrections proposed is examined using data obtained in two different shear boxes for three separate sands over a large range of normal stresses. It is demonstrated that these corrections can be used to determine the peak and critical friction angles of granular materials at low stress levels in a shear box apparatus.