As the weakest part of an immersed tunnel, the immersion joint is the key element in research in
this field. Relatively large deformations and internal forces may be induced in the immersion joint
subjected to various loading types. Based on a real project, the shear mechanical behaviour is
investigated by large scale model test. To explore the performance of the immersion joint,
compression-shear loads are applied on a tunnel segment in a specific test set-up. For the applied
loading schemes, different levels of axial force, corresponding to the water depth of the joint, are
considered as well as varying amplitudes of the shear force. Based on these results, both the static
and dynamic shear stiffness of an immersion joint were analysed. The results of the test indicate
that the static shear stiffness of the joint increases linearly with the axial force and the same trend is
found for the dynamic one. Moreover, the dynamic stiffness is larger than the static one
