4.

0 EQUIPMENT 

1. Direct shear test machine 

2. Loading pad 
3. Perforated plate 
4. Porous plate 
5. Retaining plate 
6. Tamper (for compacting sand in the direct shear box) 
7. Balance, sensitive up to 0.1g 
8. Spirit level
9. Soil container/Square specimen cutter
10. Shear box

Figure 1 : Direct shear test machine Figure 2 : Loading pad, Perforated plate, Porous
plate, Retaining plate, Tamper, Spirit level, Soil
container, Shear box
Safety and Precautions
1) The shearing rate must be slow enough to allow nearly complete dissipation of excess pore
pressure during the drained tests and to prevent the build-up of pore pressure during
undrained tests.
2) No vibrations should be transmitted to the specimen during the tests so that the result
obtained will be more accurate.
3) The upper half of the shear box must be lifted carefully to prevent from disturbing the sample
resulting in cracks.
4) Sample must be handled carefully during placement.
5) The grooves of the grid plate must be normal to the direction of shear strain.
6) Before starting the test, the upper half of the box should be brought in proper contact with the
proving ring.
7) Spacing screws should be removed before shearing the specimen.
8) Before subjecting the specimen to shear, the fixing pins should be taken out.
9) The rate of strain should be constant throughout the test.
5.0 PROCEDURE 
1. The spirit lever was placed on top of the lever and the bubble was make sure to be stable in
the middle of the spirit lever.
2. 1 kg load was installed on the machine.
3. The dimensions of the soil specimen were determined by verifying internal measurement of
square specimen cutter using vernier callipers (i.e., length, L, width, B, and height H).
4. The sample of soil was prepared.
5. A piece of paper was put on the table and the square specimen cutter was put on top of the
paper.
6. A portion of sample sand was scoped out and filled into the square specimen cutter in small
layers and was compacted by using a tamper.
7. The dry sand in a specimen cutter was weighed and recorded, m1.
8. The base plate in the shear box was fixed and the porous plate was put on the base plate.
Next, the perforated grid plate was fit over porous plate so that the grid plates should be at
right angles to the direction shear. 

Figure 3: Different layers position in shear box

9. The shear box was made sure to be parallel to the other.

10. The two halves of the shear box were fixed by inserting the two vertical screws.
11. The soil sample was transferred to the shear box by pressing down on the top grid plate by
using the tamper to compact the soil in shear box. The surface of the sand specimen was
levelled. 
12. The shear box was mount assembly on the loading frame. 
13. The dial of the proving ring was set to zero. 
14. Place the loading yoke on the loading pad and carefully lift the hanger onto the top of the 
loading yoke. 
15. The correct loading was applied to the hanger pad. 
16. The screws clamping the upper half to the lower half were carefully removed.
17. The test was conducted by applying horizontal shear load to failure. Rate strain should
be 0.5mm/min.
18. The readings of horizontal and force dial gauges were recorded for every 20 minutes
displacement in the horizontal dial gauge.
19. Continue the observation till the specimen fails;
 a. The proving ring dial gauge reading reaches a maximum and then falls, or 
b. The proving ring dial gauge reading reaches a maximum and then remains
constant.
20. The test was repeated on the identical specimen under different vertical compressive
stresses; 1.75kg, 2.5kg and 3.25kg