Direct Shear Test and Shear Strength Model of Clay-Filled Joints

Abstract To better study the shear characteristics of infilled joints with soil having different moisture contents, the influence of the moisture content on the shear characteristics of the infilled joint was explored in this paper, and a revised shear strength model of infilled joint surface is proposed. The results show that the shear dilatation modes of joints can be divided into four types: pure shear dilatation, pure shear compression, shear dilation-shear compression and shear compression-shear dilation. As the joint roughness coefficient (JRC) value increases, the normal displacement of the joint surface gradually increases during the shearing process and the normal stress has an inhibitory effect on dilatation. The infill material will weaken the peak shear stress of the joint surface. When the JRC value of joint surface is small, the weakening effect of soil with moisture content of 30% on peak shear stress is obvious. The revised joint roughness coefficient-joint wall compressive strength (JRC-JCS) model of infilled joint is proposed and the maximum shear stress value calculated by the model has a good linear relationship with the test value.