Test Procedure of Direct Shear Test
The Direct Shear Test is an experimental procedure conducted in geotechnical engineering
practice and research that aims to determine the shear strength of soil materials. Shear strength is
defined as the maximum resistance that a material can withstand when subjected to shearing.
Generally, the Direct Shear Test is considered one of the most common and simple tests to
derive the strength of a soil and can be performed on undisturbed or remoulded samples.
Test Procedure of Direct shear test contains following steps:
1. Collect the soil specimen which is either undisturbed or remolded. The sample should be
taken using sampler and Rammer. If cohesionless soil is taking then sampler and rammer
are not required.
2. The inner dimensions of sampler should be 60 mm x 60 mm in plans which are also the
inner dimensions of shear box. The Thickness of box is about 50 mm while the thickness
of sample should be 25 mm
3. Now attach the two halves of the shear box with locking pins and place the base plate at
the bottom.
4. Above the bottom plate, Place the porous stone and above it place the grid plate. Plain
grid plates are used for undrained conditions while perforated grid plates are used for
drained conditions.
5. Now we have base plate, porous stone and grid plate in the shear box. Weigh the box at
this stage and note down.
6. After that place the soil specimen above the grid plate. Undisturbed sample is directly
transferred to shear box. If sandy soil is using, place it layers wise and tamper the each
layer to get the required density.
7. Note down the weight of shear box with soil specimen.
8. Above the soil specimen, place the upper grid plate, porous stone and loading pad one
above the other
9. Now the whole box is placed in a container and mounted on the loading frame.
10. Proving ring is arranged in such a way that it should contact the upper half of the shear
box.
11. Loading yoke is placed on the steel ball of loading pad of shear box.
12. Two dial gauges are fitted one to the container for measuring shear displacement and
other one is to the loading yoke for measuring vertical displacement.
13. Now locking pins are removed from the shear box and spacing screws are placed in their
respective positions of the box
14. The upper half of the box is raised slightly with the help of spacing screws. The spacing
is decided depending upon the maximum size of particle.
15. Now apply the normal stress which is generally 25 kN/m2. Also apply the shear load at a
constant rate of strain.
16. Now the box starts reacting to loads applied and for every 30 seconds note down the
readings of proving ring and dial gauges.
17. If the proving ring reaches maximum and suddenly drops it, means the specimen is failed.
Note down the maximum value which is nothing but failure stress.
18. For some soils, failure point is taken at 20% of shear strain.
19. Finally remove the box and measure the water content of the specimen.
20. Repeat the same procedure for different normal stresses of 50, 100, 150,200,250,300,400
kN/m2
Now determine the shear stress at failure for different normal stress values:
Shear
Stress Shear Initial Final
Test Normal
at Displacement Water Water
no. stress (kN/m2)
Failure at Failure Content Content
(kN/m2)
Now plot a graph between normal stress and shear stress by taking normal stress on abscissa and
shear stress at failure on ordinate. The graph looks like as shown below.
Graph plotted between Normal Stress and Shear stress
From the graph shear strength S = c’ + σ tan ȹ’
Where C' = Effective cohesion = Effective stress = Effective angle