This past a few decades, a great attention has been paid to the geological disposal of high-level nuclear radioactive waste from various viewpoints. The basic concept of the method mentioned above is that rock masses function as a natural barrier to prevent transportation of hazardous materials to habitant areas through discontinuous plane such as fractures, faults, and so on, even if the leakage of radionuclide occurs. Hence, it is an inevitable task to evaluate hydraulic characteristics of rock masses through rock joint. It is well-known that flow in fractures is affected by many factors. Among them, aperture of rock joints, which is affected by stress conditions and joint roughness, would be one of the most important factors. Hence, it is necessary to grasp the interaction between hydraulic characteristics and shear deformation of the rock masses. From such a viewpoint, authors developed a new shear-flow coupling apparatus to investigate the effects of mechanical parameters on hydraulic behaviors through a single joint. As concluding remarks, this paper presents some findings on the correlation between dilation due to shear deformation and conductivity of a single joint.
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