An Experimental Study on Mechanical Behavior of Parallel Joint Specimens under Compression Shear

In order to investigate the influence of the joint on the failure mode, peak shear strength, and shear stress-strain curve of rock mass, the compression shear test loading on the parallel jointed specimens was carried out, and the acoustic emission system was used to monitor the loading process. The joint spacing and joint overlap were varied to alter the relative positions of parallel joints in geometry. Under compression-shear loading, the failure mode of the joint specimen can be classified into four types: coplanar shear failure, shear failure along the joint plane, shear failure along the shear stress plane, and similar integrity shear failure. The joint dip angle has a decisive effect on the failure mode of the specimen. The joint overlap affects the crack development of the specimen but does not change the failure mode of the specimen. The joint spacing can change the failure mode of the specimen. The shear strength of the specimen firstly increases and then decreases with the increase of the dip angle and reaches the maximum at 45°. The shear strength decreases with the increase of the joint overlap and increases with the increase of the joint spacing. The shear stress-displacement curves of different joint inclination samples have differences which mainly reflect in the postrupture stage. From monitoring results of the AE system, the variation regular of the AE count corresponds to the failure mode, and the peak value of the AE count decreases with the increase of joint overlap and increases with the increase of joint spacing.

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