Nonlinear elastic model for compacted clay concrete interface

In this paper, a nonlinear elastic model was developed to simulate the behavior of compacted clay concrete interface (CCCI) based on the principle of transition mechanism failure (TMF). A number of simple shear tests were conducted on CCCI to demonstrate different failure mechanisms; i.e., sliding failure and deformation failure. The clay soil used in the test was collected from the “Shuang Jang Kou” earth rockfill dam project. It was found that the behavior of the interface depends on the critical water contents by which two failure mechanisms can be recognized. Mathematical relations were proposed between the shear at failure and water content in addition to the transition mechanism indicator. The mathematical relations were then incorporated into the interface model. The performance of the model is verified with the experimental results. The verification shows that the proposed model is capable of predicting the interface shear stress versus the total shear displacement very well.