Shear Wave Propagation Across Filled Joints with the Effect of Interfacial Shear Strength

Abstract

The thin-layer interface model for filled joints is extended to analyze shear wave propagation across filled rock joints when the interfacial shear strength between the filling material and the rocks is taken into account. During the wave propagation process, the two sides of the filled joint are welded with the adjacent rocks first and slide on each other when the shear stress on the joint is greater than the interfacial shear strength. By back analysis, the relation between the shear stress and the relative tangential deformation of the filled joints is obtained from the present approach, which is shown as a cycle parallelogram. Comparison between the present approach and the existing method based on the zero-thickness interface model indicates that the present approach is efficient to analyze shear wave propagation across rock joints with slippery behavior. The calculation results show that the slippery behavior of joints is related to the interfacial failure. In addition, the interaction between the shear stress wave and the two sides of the filling joint influences not only the wave propagation process but also the dynamic response of the filled joint.