토공구간 성토체의 Wetting Collapse에 관한 연구

Wetting-Induced Collapse in Rock Fill Materials for Embankment

Recently, the high speed railway comes into the spotlight as the important and convenient traffic infrastructure. In Korea, Kyung-Bu high speed train service began in about 400km section at 2004, and the Ho-Nam high speed railway will be constructed by 2017. The high speed train will run with a design maximum speed of 300-350km/hr. Since the trains are operated at high speed, the differential settlement of subgrade under the rail is able to cause a fatal disaster. Therefore, the differential settlement of the embankment must be controlled with the greatest care. Furthermore, the characteristics and causes of settlements which occurred under construction and post-construction should be investigated. A considerable number of studies have been conducted on the settlement of the natural ground over the past several decades. But little attention has been given to the compression settlement of the embankment. The long-term settlement of compacted fills embankments is greatly influenced by the post-construction wetting. This is called 'hydro collapse' or 'wetting collapse'. In spite of little study for this wetting collapse problem, it has been recognized that the compressibility of compacted sands, gravels and rockfills exhibit low compressibility at low pressures, but there can be significant compression at high pressures due to grain crushing by several researchers(Marachi et al. 1969, Nobari and Duncan 1972, Noorany et al. 1994, Houston et al. 1993, Wu 2004). The characteristics of compression of fill materials depend on a number of factors such as soil/rock type, as-compacted moisture, density, stress level and wetting condition. Because of the complexity of these factors, it is not easy to predict quantitatively the amount of compression without extensive tests. Therefore, in this research I carried out the wetting collapse tests, with focusing in various soil/rock type, stress levels, wetting condition more closely.