Development of cyclic shear apparatus for soil-structure interface

A new, large-scale test apparatus is developed to investigate the monotonic and cyclic behaviors of the interface between two geomaterials or between soil and structure. A detailed description of the apparatus and typical tests are presented in this paper. The coarse grained soil as well as other soils and common structural materials in civil engineering can be all well tested by the apparatus as a result of large test size of the interface and high loading level. Three normal boundary conditions can be imposed on the interface directly. The stress and deformation of the interface are measured in both macro and micro way with high accuracy. The validity of the apparatus is verified by lots of conducted tests.