Effect of roughness on interface shear behavior of sand with steel and concrete surface

The present study evaluates the interface shear strength between sand and different construction materials, namely steel and concrete, using direct shear test apparatus. The influence of surface roughness, mean size of sand particles, relative density of sand and size of the direct shear box on the interface shear behavior of sand with steel and concrete has been investigated. Test results show that the surface roughness of the construction materials significantly influences the interface shear strength. The peak and residual interface friction angles increase rapidly up to a particular value of surface roughness (critical surface roughness), beyond which the effect becomes negligible. At critical surface roughness, the peak and residual friction angles of the interfaces are 85-92% of the peak and residual internal friction angles of the sand. The particle size of sand (for morphologically identical sands) significantly influences the value of critical surface roughness. For the different roughness considered in the present study, both the peak and residual interaction coefficients lie in the range of 0.3-1. Moreover, the peak and residual interaction coefficients for all the interfaces considered are nearly identical, irrespective of the size of the direct shear box. The constitutive modeling of different interfaces followed the experimental investigation and it successfully predicted the pre-peak, peak and post peak interface shear response with reasonable accuracy. Moreover, the predicted stress-displacement relationship of different interfaces is in good agreement with the experimental results. The findings of the present study may also be applicable to other non-yielding interfaces having a similar range of roughness and sand properties.