Rock Deformation and Earthquake Mechanics Lab

Department

Geosciences

Address

4505 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT, 84322

Contact 

Dr. Srisharan Shreedharan
srisharan.shreedharan@usu.edu

The RDEM lab operates two rock/sediment deformation apparatuses:

1. a 1-meter biaxial deformation apparatus consisting of a steel load frame with hydraulically driven normal (4 MN) and shear loads (2 MN). The load frame can accommodate samples up to 1.2 m long and is configured to deform sediment/gouge/powder sandwiched between 0.85 m long Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) blocks. Samples can be instrumented with strain gauge rosettes to measure local shear stresses/strains, ILD1320 laseroptical displacement sensors, and Panametrics V103 ultrasonic contact transducers, all of which can be operated simultaneously.
2. An electromechanical direct/residual shear system capable of applying up to 2,500 lbf (11 kN) vertical and horizontal load capacity, and deformation rates of 0.1 nm/s - 16.67 μm/s. Shear testing can currently be performed on 1" and 2” round samples. The apparatus is configured to record and store normal and shear loads and displacements (4 channels) with the ability to record additional sensors/channels.

The USU RDEM laboratory is equipped with apparatuses and data acquisition instrumentation to perform a broad range of brittle deformation experiments on rock and sediment samples. The lab also utilizes storage and computational resources at the University of Utah Center for High Performance Computing. Contact lab PI, Dr. Srisharan Shreedharan, for more information.