Experimental Investigation on Shear Failure Mechanism of Rock Mass with Intermittent Joints

There are a large number of discontinuous weak planes distributed in the natural rock mass, which makes the sliding failure of rock mass along the intermittent structural plane very complex. To investigate the shear failure mechanism of rock mass with intermittent joints and study the influence of different joint heights on the shear failure mode of the rock mass, direct shear tests were carried out by presetting a series of jointed rock specimens with different undulating heights. During the shear loading, digital image correlation (DIC) technology was employed to monitor the surface strain field of the specimens in real time. The results show that the fluctuation height has a significant effect on the evolution of shear strain. With the increase of shear load, the maximum shear strain of the jointed specimens with different undulating heights first increases slowly and then increases rapidly. When the undulating height is 5 mm, the failure of the specimen is dominated by the rock sliding along prefabricated joints. When the undulating height is larger than 10 mm, the shear fracture of the rock becomes dominant. With the increase of the undulating height, more penetrating cracks perpendicular to the preexisting joints appear between the serrated surfaces, and the shear fracture phenomenon is more obvious.

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