The boundary conditions in direct simple shear tests: Developments for peat testing at low normal stress

More than the half of the Netherlands is under the high level of sea and rivers. Therefore, evaluating the safety of dykes is primordial. A specific interest is given to peat dykes safety which suffer of a lack of knowledge which manifested recently by some peat dykes failures (Van Baars 2005). The behaviour of peat is also of interest in others...