Effect of sieving height on density and friction of brittle analogue material : ring-shear test data of quarz sand used for analogue experiments in the Tectonic Modelling Lab of the University of Bern

This dataset provides friction data from ring-shear tests (RST) for a quartz sand (“A”). This material is used in various types of analogue experiments in Tectonic Modelling Lab of the University of Bern as an analogue for brittle layers in the crust or lithosphere. The material has been characterized by means of internal friction coefficients μ and cohesions C. Three sub-datasets represent a systematic increase of the sieving height from 10 cm to 20 cm to 30 cm into a shear cell of type No. 1, following the same protocol. This dataset shows that packing density of quartz sand is dependent on the chosen sieving height. However, the effect of the sieving height on internal friction coefficients μ as well as cohesion C is minor and thus negligible in sandbox experiments. According to our analysis the material shows for a sieving height of 10 cm a Mohr-Coulomb behaviour characterized by a linear failure envelope and peak, dynamic and reactivation friction coefficients of μP = 0.70, μD = 0.60 and μR = 0.65, respectively. Cohesions C are in the order of 40 – 80 Pa.