ABSTRACT
A simple shear device named the Double Specimen Direct Simple Shear (DSDSS) device was designed to investigate static and cyclic properties of soils at small strains, such as the cyclic stress-strain loops, maximum shear modulus, G max, secant shear modulus, G s, and equivalent viscous damping ratio, λ. Cyclic shear strains between 10−4 % and 4% were successfully applied and measured in a single test on the same specimen. The measurement of very small strains was achieved by completely eliminating the friction of load-transfer mechanism and by reducing the effects of mechanical compliance of the device to practically zero. This was facilitated by using a special configuration of two parallel specimens.
