Integration of rock joint roughness into the Mohr-Coulomb shear behaviour model – application to dam safety analysis

Abstract

Based on a previous experimental study that we conducted on granite joint replicas including thirty direct shear tests, this article proposes to integrate the joint roughness in the Mohr-Coulomb shear behaviour model (MC). The model integrates joint roughness into constitutive stress-displacement relationships describing mechanical behaviour of rock joint. The shear strength of rock joint is assessed by the MC shear criterion that takes into account the apparent cohesion. This MC model integrating rock joint roughness component is validated against other experimental results from the literature. It is able to accurately predict the peak shear strength of an unbounded rock joint with an average relative error of 7.9%. It is finally used to assess the role of joint roughness on the shear behaviour of a gravity dam foundation.