ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Earth Sci.
Sec. Geohazards and Georisks
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feart.2025.1658450
This article is part of the Research TopicNatural Disaster Prediction Based on Experimental and Numerical MethodsView all 26 articles
Shear Size Effect of Cover Interface Analysis of Shear Size Effect and Failure Characteristics of Cover Interface Considering Normal Force
Provisionally accepted
- 1Zhejiang Huadong Geotechnical Investigation & Design Institute Co Ltd, Hangzhou, China
- 2Shaoxing University, Shaoxing, China
- 3University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China
- 4Ningbo University, Ningbo, China
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The shear mechanical properties of the cover interface play a key role in the stability analysis of tunnel surrounding rock structure. To further reveal the coupling effect of overlying stress and size effect on the shear strength and failure mode of the cover interface, this paper adopts the RFPA numerical simulation method to carry out direct shear simulation and normalization analysis of the cover interface under different normal stresses and interface sizes. The results show that the shear strength of the cover interface decreases significantly with the increase of interface size, exhibiting a negative exponential relationship. Normal stress enhances interfacial friction, increases peak and residual shear strength, and has an exponential relationship with the size effect coefficient. The larger the normal stress, the faster the attenuation of size effect. At different sizes, the end effect is significant in small samples, with cracks densely distributed at the ends; Cracks penetrate along the interface in large samples, and residual shear slip is more complete. Based on the normalized shear strength curve, the universality of size effect and the coupling effect of normal stress were Shear Size Effect of Cover Interface revealed. The research results can provide theoretical support and parameter basis for the analysis of shear stability of weak surfaces in underground structures.
Keywords: Cover interface, Shear Strength, normal stress, Size effect, end effect
Received: 02 Jul 2025; Accepted: 11 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Sun, Zhang, Deng, Du, Hu and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Gaojian Hu, Shaoxing University, Shaoxing, China
Guangjian Liu, Ningbo University, Ningbo, China
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