This paper proposes gob-side entry retaining by roof break and filling in thick-layer soft rock conditions based on the thick-layer soft rock roof strata migration law and the demand for non-pillar gob-side entry retaining projects. The functional expressions of main roof subsidence are derived for three break roof direction conditions: lateral deflection toward the roadway, lateral deflection toward the gob and vertically to the roof. These are derived according to the load-bearing boundary conditions of the main roadway roof stratum. It is concluded that the break roof angle is an important factor influencing the stability of gob-side entry retaining surrounding rock. This paper studies the stress distribution characteristics and plastic damage scope of gob-side entry retaining integrated coal seams, as well as the roof strata migration law and the supporting stability of caving structure filled on the break roof layer at the break roof angles of $-5^{\circ}$, $0^{\circ}$, $5^{\circ}$, $10^{\circ}$ and $15^{\circ}$ are studied. The simulation results of numerical analysis indicate that, the stress concentration and plastic damage scope to the sides of gob-side entry retaining integrated coal at the break roof angle of $5^{\circ}$ are reduced and shearing stress concentration of the caving filling body has been eliminated. The disturbance of coal mining to the roadway roof and loss of carrying capacity are mitigated. Field tests have been carried out on air-return roadway 5203 with the break roof angle of $5^{\circ}$. The monitoring indicates that the break roof filling section and compaction section are located at 0-45 m and 45-75 m behind the working face, respectively. The section from 75-100 m tends to be stable.

The stability prediction of shallow buried tunnels is one of the most difficult tasks in civil engineering. The aim of this work is to predict the state of collapse in shallow tunnel in layered soils by employing non-associated flow rule and nonlinear failure criterion within the framework of upper bound theorem. Particular emphasis is first given to consider the effects of dilation on the collapse mechanism of shallow tunnel. Furthermore, the seepage forces and surface settlement are considered to analyze the influence of different dilation coefficients on the collapse shape. Two different curve functions which describe two different soil layers are obtained by virtual work equations under the variational principle. The distinct characteristics of falling blocks up and down the water level are discussed in the present work. According to the numerical results, the potential collapse range decreases with the increase of the dilation coefficient. In layered soils, both of the single layer's dilation coefficient and two layers' dilation coefficients increase, the range of the potential collapse block reduces.

Estimation of slope stability is a very important task in geotechnical engineering. However, its estimation using conventional and soft computing methods has several drawbacks. Use of conventional limit equilibrium methods for the evaluation of slope stability is very tedious and time consuming, while the use of soft computing approaches like Artificial Neural Networks and Fuzzy Logic are black box approaches. Multiple Regression (MR) analysis provides an alternative to conventional and soft computing methods, for the evaluation of slope stability. MR models provide a simplified equation, which can be used to calculate critical factor of safety of slopes without adopting any iterative procedure, thereby reducing the time and complexity involved in the evaluation of slope stability. In the present study, a multiple regression model has been developed and tested its accuracy in the estimation of slope stability using real field data. Here, two separate multiple regression models have been developed for dry and wet slopes. Further, the accuracy of these developed models have been compared and validated with respect to conventional limit equilibrium methods in terms of Mean Square Error (MSE) & Coefficient of determination ($R^2$). As the developed MR models here are not based on any region specific data and covers wide range of parametric variations, they can be directly applied to any real slopes.

Soft clay strata can suffer significant settlement or stability problems under building loads. Among the methods proposed to strengthen weak soils is the application of a stone masonry trench (SMT) beneath RC strip foundations (as a masonry pad-stone). Although, SMTs are frequently employed in engineering practice; however, the effectiveness of SMTs on the ultimate bearing capacity improvement of a strip footing rested on a weak clay stratum has not been investigated quantitatively, yet. Therefore, the expected increase of bearing capacity of strip footings reinforced with SMTs is of interest and needs to be evaluated. This study presents a two-dimensional numerical model using the discrete element method (DEM) to capture the ultimate load-bearing capacity of a strip footing on a soft clay reinforced with a SMT. The developed DEM model was then used to perform a parametric study to investigate the effects of SMT geometry and properties on the footing bearing capacity with and without the presence of surcharge. The dimensions of the SMTs were varied to determine the optimum trench relative depth. The study showed that inclusion of a SMT of optimum dimension in a soft clay can improve the bearing capacity of a strip footing up to a factor of 3.5.

A new technique is proposed to obtain more effective screening efficiency against the ground vibration using intermittent geofoam (IF) in-filled trench. The numerical analysis is performed by employing two-dimensional finite element method under dynamic condition. Vertically oscillated strip foundation is considered as the vibration source. In presence of the ground vibration, the vertical displacements at different locations (pick-up points) along the ground surface are captured to determine the amplitude reduction factor (ARF), which helps to assess the efficiency of the vibration screening technique. The efficiency of IF over continuous geofoam (CF) in-filled vibration barriers is assessed by varying the geofoam density, the location of trench and the frequency of excitation. The results from this study indicate that a significant reduction in ARF can be achieved by using intermittent geofoam as compared to continuous geofoam. Further, it is noticed that the efficiency of IF increases with an increase in the frequency of the vibrating source. These encouraging results put forward the potential of utilising intermittent geofoam as a vibration screening material.

Shallow coal resources are increasingly depleted, the mining has entered the deep stage. Due to "High stress, high gas, strong adsorption and low permeability" of coal seam, the gas drainage has become more difficult and the probability of coal and gas outburst accident increases. Based on the flow solid coupling theory of coal seam gas, the coupling model about stress and gas seepage of coal seam was set up by solid module and Darcy module in Comsol Multiphysics. The gas extraction effects were researched after applying hydraulic technology to increase permeability. The results showed that the effective influence radius increases with the expanded borehole radius and drainage time, decreases with initial gas pressure. The relationship between the effective influence radius and various factors presents in the form: $y=a+{\frac{b}{\left(1+{(\frac{x}{x_0})^p}\right)}}$. The effective influence radius with multiple boreholes is obviously larger than that of the single hole. According to the actual coal seam and gas geological conditions, appropriate layout way was selected to achieve the best effect. The field application results are consistent with the simulation results. It is found that the horizontal stress plays a very important role in coal seam drainage effect. The stress distribution change around the drilling hole will lead to the changes in porosity of coal seam, further resulting in permeability evolution and finally gas pressure distribution varies.

Based on the existing research results, a three-dimensional failure mechanism of tunnel face was constructed. The dynamic seismic effect was taken into account on the basis of quasi-static method, and the nonlinear Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion was introduced into the limit analysis by using the tangent technique. The collapse pressure along with the failure scope of tunnel face was obtained through nonlinear limit analysis. Results show that nonlinear coefficient and initial cohesion have a significant impact on the collapse pressure and failure zone. However, horizontal seismic coefficient and vertical seismic proportional coefficient merely affect the collapse pressure and the location of failure surface. And their influences on the volume and height of failure mechanism are not obvious. By virtue of reliability theory, the influences of horizontal and vertical seismic forces on supporting pressure were discussed. Meanwhile, safety factors and supporting pressures with respect to 3 different safety levels are also obtained, which may provide references to seismic design of tunnels.

This vacuum preloading combined with polyacrylamide (PAM) flocculation was proposed to separating solid-liquid in waste slurry and to improving bearing capacity of soft soil ground. By using waste slurry taken from drilled shaft construction site in Shanghai, China, a series of settling column tests with four typical flocculants and one normal for waste slurry were carried out for comparative analysis. The optimal amounts for each flocculant were obtained from the column tests. Then, model tests on vacuum preloading with anionic polyacrylamide (APAM) flocculation and without flocculants were carried out. The out of water and the settlement of slurry surface ground were monitored during the model tests, and the changes in water content, particle-size and pore-size distributions in different positions after the model tests were measured and discussed. It is found that water content of the waste slurry without APAM flocculation changed from 204 to 195% by 24 hours standing and 15 hours vacuum preloading, while the water content of the waste slurry with APAM flocculation was declined from 163 to 96% by 24 hours standing, and was further reduced into 37% by 136 hours vacuum preloading, which shows that the combined method is feasible and effective.

A comparison study is made between the dynamic properties of an argillaceous siltstone and its grouting-reinforced body. The purpose is to investigate how grout injection can help repair broken soft rocks. A slightly weathered argillaceous siltstone is selected, and part of the siltstone is mechanically crushed and cemented with Portland cement to simulate the grouting-reinforced body. Core specimens with the size of $50mm{\times}38mm$ are prepared from the original rock and the grouting-reinforced body. Impact tests on these samples are then carried out using a Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB) apparatus. Failure patterns are analyzed and geotechnical parameters of the specimens are estimated. Based on the experimental results, for the grouting-reinforced body, its shock resistance is poorer than that of the original rock, and most cracks happen in the cementation boundaries between the cement mortar and the original rock particles. It was observed that the grouting-reinforced body ends up with more fragmented residues, most of them have larger fractal dimensions, and its dynamic strength is generally lower. The mass ratio of broken rocks to cement has a significant effect on its dynamic properties and there is an optimal ratio that the maximum dynamic peak strength can be achieved. The dynamic strain-softening behavior of the grouting-reinforced body is more significant compared with that of the original rock. Both the time dependent damage model and the modified overstress damage model are equally applicable to the original rock, but the former performs much better compared with the latter for the grouting-reinforced body. In addition, it was also shown that water content and impact velocity both have significant effect on dynamic properties of the original rock and its grouting-reinforced body. Higher water content leads to more small broken rock pieces, larger fractal dimensions, lower dynamic peak strength and smaller elastic modulus. However, the water content plays a minor role in fractal dimensions when the impact velocity is beyond a certain value. Higher impact loading rate leads to higher degree of fragmentation and larger fractal dimensions both in argillaceous siltstone and its grouting-reinforced body. These results provide a sound basis for the quantitative evaluation on how cement grouting can contribute to the repair of broken soft rocks.

This paper presents a case study and numerical investigation to study the hydro-mechanical response of a shallow landslide in unsaturated slopes subjected to rainfall infiltration using a coupled model. The coupled model was interpreted in details by expressing the balance equations for soil mixture and the coupled constitutive equations. The coupled model was verified against experimental data from the shearing-infiltration triaxial tests. A real case of shallow landslide occurred on Mt. Umyeonsan, Seoul, Korea was employed to explore the influence of rainfall infiltration on the slope stability during heavy rainfall. Numerical results showed that the coupled model accurately predicted the poromechanical behavior of a rainfall-induced landslide by simultaneously linking seepage and stress-strain problems. It was also found that the coupled model properly described progress failure of a slope in a highly transient condition. Through the comparisons between the coupled and uncoupled models, the coupled model provided more realistic analysis results under rainfall. Consequently, the coupled model was found to be feasible for the stability and seepage analysis of practical engineering problems.