Shear Behaviour of Rock Joints Under Cyclic Loading

For the design of civil and mining engineering geo-structures, it is often necessary to investigate the behaviour and the role of discontinuities on the rock mass performance. In many cases, failure is governed by the shear behaviour of discontinuities in excavations. In this context, evaluation of the effects of small repetitive earthquakes on the shear strength parameters of rock joints especially in tunnels and dam foundations is also important. This paper presents the results of a systematic study carried out on the cyclic shear behaviour of artificial rock joints under constant normal stiffness (CNS) conditions, as many o