Influence of Joint Secondary Roughness on Roughness Parameter in Direct Shear Test

Abstract

Rock joint surface roughness, which is known to be one of the most important factors for defining shear strength of rock mass, has been researched in various methods. However, approaches to separate a roughness into two groups (primary and secondary) for evaluating the roughness have been rarely performed. In this study, elements of secondary roughness were eliminated through direct shear testing with tensile joint specimen and they were quantified with joint parameters. It is revealed that roughness parameters decrease with increasing the normal stress and sampling intervals, except for the case in which the normal stress is larger than 1.5 MPa. Also it is analyzed that ratio of area reduction in the opposite direction of shearing decreases with increasing the roughness parameter.