Rock Shear Box Apparatus

This shear box has been designed to receive irregularly shaped samples with surfaces measuring up to 115 x 125 mm or cores with a maximum diameter of 102 mm. The lower half of the box is connected to two hydraulic rams which generate the shearing force (in both directions) and the upper half supports the ram that applies the load at a right angle to the failure surface. The horizontal and vertical actuators are connected to two manually-operated hydraulic pumps. During the test the normal stress and the shearing stress are read on two independent dial gauges calibrated in engineering units; if the measurement of the shear deformation is required an appropriate dial gauge can be mounted on the support.