Failure state of a sand in simple shear

The stress state in many practical geotechnical problems is analogous to simple shear strain. However, the devices available to test soil samples in simple shear strain impose nonuniform stress and strain fields. Consequently, the interpretation of results from simple shear tests is often questioned. In this article, results of tests on loose and dense Leighton Buzzard sand from two specially instrumented simple shear devices-Cambridge University's device and a Norwegian Geotechnical Institute type-are used to interpret the failure mode and the failure stress state. The data were obtained from the centre of the samples, a region removed from stress concentrations. Failure was observed to be initiated on vertical planes and occurred very soon after shear displacement was applied. However, neither these vertical planes nor the horizontal planes were the planes of maximum stress obliquity mobilized during the tests. Key words: deformation, failure, loads, sand, shear tests, simple shear, stresses.