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Mechanical behavior of natural

marble discontinuities
Article January 2010

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5 authors, including:
Muriel Gasc-Barbier
Cerema center for expertise and
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Riss Jolle
University of Bordeaux
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Rock Mechanics in Civil and Environmental Engineering Zhao, Labiouse, Dudt & Mathier (eds)
2010 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-415-58654-2

Mechanical behavior of natural marble discontinuities

T.T.N. Hoang & M. Gasc-Barbier
Laboratoire Rgional des Ponts et Chausses, Toulouse, France

J. Sulem
UR Navier, CERMES, cole des Ponts ParisTech, Marne la Valle, France

A. Marache & J. Riss

Universit Bordeaux, GHYMAC, Talence, France

ABSTRACT: Laboratory mechanical characterization of natural discontinuities in marble is performed using

a shear test apparatus. Samples with different morphological characteristics are selected. The direct shear tests
were carried out under Constant Normal Loading (CNL) condition for a complete displacement cycle. The
influence of the normal stress and the shear rate on the behavior of the discontinuities is investigated.

INTRODUCTION

In fractured rock masses, the mechanical behavior is

strongly dependent on the discontinuities. In order to
understand the structural stability of jointed rock mass,
it is necessary to study of the behavior of rock discontinuities under different loading conditions. The
mechanical behavior of rock discontinuities is commonly studied in the laboratory using a direct shear
apparatus. Many studies have been performed on artificial joints with saw-tooth (Crawford & Curran 1981,
Huang et al. 1993, Homand et al. 2001, Lee et al.
2001, Biran et al. 2009) or on mortar replicas (Bandis et al. 1981, Jing et al. 1993, Gentier et al. 2000).
Some authors have performed shear tests on natural
rock joints (Huang et al. 1993, Armand et al. 1998).
Huang et al. (1993) found that the natural rock joints
showed some different characteristics as compared the
artificial joints under cyclic loading.
Our study is focused on natural joints. The test
specimens come from core samples extracted for the
preliminary design studies of St Bat tunnel, in France.
The site is located in the internal metamorphic zone of
the Pyrenees with a rock formation dating from Lias
and Lower Albian ages, which corresponds to a lithology dominated by metamorphic limestone or dolomite
(marble). The rock mass is highly fractured. Some previous studies have been performed on this site: the
fracture network as observed on outcrops has been presented in Gasc-Barbier et al. (2006), a discussion on
the uncertainties affecting the knowledge of the fracture network in Gasc-Barbier et al. (2010) and some
basic geometric and geomechanical simulations based
on these fracture networks in Merrien-Soukatchoff
et al. (2007). The understanding of the characteristics

Figure 1. MTS testing system in direct shear configuration.

of the site also necessitates experimental investigation

on the mechanical behavior of discontinuities.

2 TESTING MACHINE
The testing system used to perform the tests is a digitally servo-hydraulic system (MTS design) which can
carry out compression/tensile tests triaxial tests and
also shear tests.
In shearing configuration, the normal load capacity
is 500 kN with a maximum shear force of 250 kN and
a maximum shear displacement of 50 mm. The shear
box dimension is 20 cm by 20 cm. The shear system
is equipped with four horizontal and two vertical displacements sensors of LVDT type with an accuracy of
0.087 mm. The system is described on Figure 1 and
more details can be found in Gasc-Barbier & Guittard
(2009).

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EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAM

3.1

Saint Bat marble

The studied rock is a marble characterized by fine or

coarse grains, of grey to white color, entirely crystallized. The density is about 2700 kg/m3 and the porosity
about 0.3%. The main mechanical properties of this
marble were determined by basic tests and presented
in Guittard et al. (2005) as follows:

Uniaxial compression strength: 90 MPa

Uniaxial tension strength: 6.9 MPa
Youngs modulus: 86.8 GPa
Poissons ratio: 0.3

3.2 Sample preparation

Twelve natural joints are selected from 85 mm in
diameter-drilled cores. These joint surfaces show no
sign of previous shearing. The sheared cross section
varies from 55 to 75 cm2 . The two walls are grouted
separately in two half-boxes and then adjusted in the
parallelepipeds of the shearing machine. The used
mortar is a special product whose compressive strength
may reach to 46 MPa after 24 h.

Figure 2. Shear stress-shear displacement and normal

displacement-shear displacement curves for tests under
(a) normal stress of 5 MPa, shear rate of 5 m/s (G1-01) and
(b) normal stress of 3 MPa, shear rate of 20 m/s (G2-09).

3.3 Testing program

The shear tests were carried out under constant normal loading (CNL) condition. The testing parameters
have been chosen in order to study the influence of
normal stress (from 1.5 to 5 MPa) and shear rate (from
5 to 100 m/s). The twelve joint samples have been
classified into three groups (G1, G2, G3) of similar
morphology according to a given direction of shearing
(Hoang et al. 2010). G1 is the group of samples with
the lower roughness and G3 with the highest. The joint
roughness coefficient (JRC) has been estimated basing on the morphology parameters using the equations
of Tse & Cruden (1979). For the samples of the same
group, the same normal stress and three different constant shear rates were used. The fourth sample of each
group was tested with a shear rate that was changed
during shearing (Tab. 1). The joint walls were sheared
in a complete cycle with a maximum displacement of
7 mm.
4 TEST RESULTS
The typical curves of shear stress and normal displacement versus shear displacement are presented in
Figure 2. For the tests under a shear rate of 5 and
10 m/s (Fig. 2a), the shear stress-shear displacement
curves have the same aspect with a peak followed by a
decrease of the shear stress.The softening behavior can
be attributed to the reduction of asperity orientation
(Huang et al. 1993). For the tests under a higher shear
rate (20 m/s), no peak stress is observed (Fig. 2b). For
tests where no peak can be identified, the shear stress
reaches a plateau. Thus, for these tests, the residual
stress is assimilated to the peak stress.
When the shear rate is changed during the test (G105, G2-11, G3-12) after the peak stress no variation

Figure 3. Shear stress-shear displacement and normal

displacement-shear displacement curves for tests under normal stress of 1.5 MPa, shear rates of 20 and 100 m/s
(G3-12).

of the shear stress is observed. Figure 3 presents the

obtained curves for the G3-12 test under the normal
stress of 1.5 MPa, at shear rates changing between 20
and 100 m/s at the middle of each shearing phase
displacement (at +3.5 and 3.5 mm).
Figure 4 presents the peak and residual shear
strengths as function of the normal stress for different shear rates. Note that for the tests at shear rate of
20 m/s and normal stress of 3 and 5 MPa, no peak
stress is observed and the residual shear strength is
assimilated to the peak stress. An increase of the normal stress is accompanied by an increase of the shear
strength. The friction angle and the cohesion of the
joint are determined by using a Mohr-Coulomb linear
criteria. The friction angle at peak strength is about 31
and 21 at residual strength. The cohesion is 0.79 MPa
at peak strength and 0.63 MPa at residual strength.
The influence of the normal stress on volumetric strain is shown on Figure 5: dilatancy decreases
with increasing normal stress. The dilatancy angle is
determined on the normal displacement versus shear
displacement curve. We observe that the maximum
dilatancy angle is reached after the peak of shear stress
with an additional displacement of 0 to 0.5 mm. Figure 6a shows the maximum dilatancy angle as function
of the normal stress. It is also observed that the shear
stiffness increases with increasing normal stress as
seen on Figure 6b. We note that for the tests run at

216

Figure 4. Peak and residual shear strengths versus normal

stress.

Figure 6. Maximum dilatancy angle and shear stiffness

versus normal stress.

Figure 7. Influence of shear rate on the peak shear strength.

Figure 5. Influence of normal stress on the dilatancy.

a higher normal stress, the shear displacement necessary to reach the residual stress is relatively smaller
than for the tests run under a lower normal stress.
Different authors have studied the influence of the
shear rate on the shear strength and found that shear
strength decreases with the increase the shear rate
(Scholz & Engelder 1976, Crawford & Curran 1981,
Armand et al. 1998, Biran et al. 2009). This influence
is well supported by our results (Fig. 7). Scholz &
Engelder (1976), Biran et al. (2009) also found that
for the shear tests subjected to high normal stress up
to 50 MPa and shear rate up to 0.3 mm/s, the frictional
coefficient decreases with the increase of shear rate.
Our study performed with normal stress from 1.5 to
5 MPa and shear rates from 5 to 20 m/s also shows
a tendency of reduction in the frictional coefficient
with increase of the shear rate (see Fig. 4a). The slope
of shear stress versus normal stress curves decreases
from 0.616 to 0.534 when the shear rate increases from
5 to 20 m/s.

Figure 8 presents the normal displacement as function of shear displacement curves for two different
sample groups at a 1.5 MPa normal stress (G3) and
at 5 MPa (G1). We observe that for the same normal
stress, an increase of the shear rate induces a decrease
of the dilatancy.
5

CONCLUSION

In this paper, a laboratory investigation of the mechanical behavior of the natural rock joints was undertaken.
Shear tests were performed on Snatural rock joints
under constant normal loading (CNL) condition. The
influence of the normal stress and the shear rate on the
mechanical behavior of joints is discussed. To summarize, two different types of reponse have been observed
with increasing of normal stress: (1) increase of shear
strength and shear stiffness, and (2) decrease of dilatancy and dilatancy angle. Concerning the effect of
the shear rate, an increasing of the shear rate leads to

217

Figure 8. Influence of shear rate on the normal displacement.

a decrease of the peak shear strength, of the frictional

coefficient and of the dilatancy.
Characterization of the joint surfaces morphology was carried out before and after the shear tests
using three-dimensional laser-scanning profilometer
(Hoang et al. 2010). The statistical parameters of the
surface morphology were calculated. An influence of
the testing parameters on the evolution of the surface
morphology after the tests was observed.The influence
of the surface morphology on the mechanical behavior
is under study and will be presented in a future paper.
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