• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2010.03a
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• pp.705-710
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• 2010

Bender element is made of connecting two piezoelectric elements which have different polarities from each other, and is a kind of sensors which can be used either way as a source making elastic wave or a receiver. Elastic waves generated by stimulating the bender elements can be decomposed to P-wave and S-wave propagation. Numerical and expeimental studies are conducted, and results show that multiple measurements are recommended to determine wave arrivals from the received signals.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.67-75
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• 2014

In this paper, isotropically consolidated drained triaxial compression test device installed with bender elements is used to measure stress, stain, and shear wave velocity, from which the characteristics of shear strength and Poisson'ratio are investigated. The results show that there is a unique relationship between maximum shear modulus determined from shear wave velocity and effective vertical stress at failure, which is defined as the sum of vertical and radial stresses at failure. The correlation is very useful since it is possible to predict the shear strength and internal friction angle from shear wave velocity. In addition, Poisson's ratio is determined from measured axial and volumetric strains. It is demonstrated that the range of measured Poisson's ratio is between 0.15 and 0.6, and increases with the axial strain. The ratios at axial strains smaller than 0.2% corresponds to the range recommended in design codes, which are approximately from 0.3~0.35. However, at axial strains exceeding 1%, the measured ratios are between 0.5 and 0.6. It is therefore shown that use of ratios commonly used in practice will result in pronounced underestimation at large strains.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.43-52
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• 2011

The characteristics of shear zone in granular soils largely affect the stability of geo-structures. The goal of this study is to evaluate shear zone in a direct shear test using shear wave, electrical resistivity, and cone tip resistance. Bender elements and electrical resistivity probe are embedded into the wall of a direct shear box made of transparent acrylic material to estimate the shear wave velocities and the electrical resistivity at shear and non-shear zones. At the point of peak and residual strength, micro cone penetration test which can be available to measure tip resistance has been performed. Experimental results show that the shear wave velocities at upper shear zone increase during shearing while the values remain constant at bottom and lower shear zone. Also, resistivities at lower shear zone depend on relative density while resistivities at bottom remain constant. The results of cone penetration test demonstrate the correlation of the cone tip resistance and small strain shear modulus at shear zone. This study suggests that the application of the modified direct shear box including shear wave, electrical resistivity and the micro cone tip resistance may become effective tools for analyzing the characteristics of a shear zone.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.2C
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• pp.95-103
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• 2008

Seismic piezocone penetration tests (SCPTu) can be used to obtain dynamic properties of soils as well as cone resistance and penetration pore pressure. However, the SCPTu system can be hardly utilized in marine soils because it is difficult to install the source apparatus which generates the shear wave in offshore site. The authors developed an inhole type piezocone penetration test (CPTu) equipment which both source and receiver composed of bender elements were installed inside the rod located behind the cone. Therefore, it can be applicable to even an offshore site without any additional source apparatus. The objective of this paper is to investigate the practical application of inhole type CPTu by performing laboratory model tests using kaolinite as soft clay. The shear wave velocities of kaolinite soil were measured with time, and the effects of soil disturbance due to the installation of source and receiver were also examined for various distance between source and receiver.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2010.09a
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• pp.1110-1116
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• 2010

Void ratios are one of the key parameters for exact calculation of settlement of soft groundse. In the study, shear wave velocities of a soft ground were used to measure the field void ratio using bender elements sensors. The bender-element probes were installed in situ at the depths of 3, 5 and 8m on a pre-loading site near Incheon, Korea. During 90 days after installation, the changes of shear wave velocity and ground surface settlement were measured. The field void ratio was estimated from measured shear wave velocities. The void ratio estimated by the shear wave velocity measured by bender elements agrees well with the measured values in the field.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.1278-1284
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• 2008

This study carried out bender element tests in a calibration chamber in order to estimate the characteristics of soil specimen prepared in a calibration chamber. Basically, the purpose of bender element test is to measure the shear wave velocity. Bender element test cannot only confirm the status of soil specimen deposited in a chamber, but also estimate the consolidation process indirectly. In order to carry out bender element test in a calibration chamber, a pair of bender elements was installed inside the chamber, using the 'ㄷ' shaped frame. For the sandy soils having various relative densities in various stress conditions, the maximum shear modulus was estimated. From the comparison with bender element test results in a triaxial testing device, testing device and procedure was validated.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.1063-1075
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• 2013

The strength of frozen soils is one of the significant design parameters for the construction in frozen ground. The properties of frozen soils should be investigated to understand the strength of frozen soils. The objective of this study is to figure out the characteristics of elastic waves in frozen soils, which reflect the constituent and physical structure of frozen soils in order to provide fundamental information of those according to the degree of saturation. Freezing cell is manufactured to freeze specimens, which are prepared with the degree of saturation of 10%, 40%, and 100%. Piezo disk elements are used as the compressional wave transducers and Bender elements are used as the shear wave transducers. While the temperature of specimens changes from $20^{\circ}C$ to $-10^{\circ}C$, the velocities, resonant frequencies and amplitudes of the compressional and shear waves are investigated based on the elastic wave signatures. Experimental results reveal that the elastic wave velocities increase as the degree of saturation increases. The variation of resonant frequencies coincide with that of elastic wave velocities. A marked discrepancy in amplitudes of compressional and shear waves are observed at the temperature of $0^{\circ}C$. This study renders the basic information of elastic waves in frozen soils according the degree of saturation.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.31-37
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• 2014

In situ investigations and laboratory tests using elastic wave have become popular in geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering. Propagation velocity of elastic wave is the key index to evaluate the ground characteristics. To evaluate this, various methods were used in both time domain and frequency domain. In time domain, the travel time can be found from the two points that have the same phase such as peaks or first rises. Cross-correlation can also be used in time domain by evaluating the time shift amount that makes the product of signals of input and received waveforms maximum. In frequency domain, wave propagation velocity can be evaluated by computing the phase differences between the source and received waves. In this study, wave propagation velocity evaluated by the methods listed above were compared. Bender element tests were conducted on the specimens cut from the undisturbed hand-cut block samples obtained from Block 37 excavation site in Chicago, IL, US. The evaluation methods in time domain provides relatively wide range of wave propagation velocities due to the noise in signals and the sampling frequency of data logger. Frequency domain approach provides relatively accurate wave propagation velocities and is irrelevant to the sampling frequency of data logger.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.28 no.12
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• pp.41-51
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• 2012

Soils are commonly unsaturated in the near surface. The stiffness of soils is affected by the amount of air and water. The objective of this study is to evaluate the porosity of the unsaturated soils by using the elastic waves including compressional and shear waves. The elastic waves are measured at different degrees of saturation by controlling the matric suction. Thus, the unsaturated soils are characterized at different levels of the matric suction. Shear and compressional waves are measured by using the bender elements and the piezo disk elements, respectively. Both transducers are installed on the walls of the rectangular cell. The unsaturated soils are prepared by using uniform size sands and silts. Test results show that both compressional and shear wave velocities change according to the matric suction. The elastic modulus, the shear modulus, and the Poisson's ratio are estimated based on the measured elastic wave velocities. In addition, the void ratio of the unsaturated soils estimated using elastic wave velocities matches well with the volume based void ratio. This study demonstrates that the elastic waves can be effectively used for the characterization of unsaturated soils.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.3C
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• pp.179-186
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• 2008

Pressuremeter test estimates the deformational properties of soil from the relationship between applied pressure and the displacement of cavity wall. It is general to utilize the reloading curve for the estimation of deformational properties of soil because the initial loading curve can be affected by the disturbance caused by boring. On the other hand, the instrumental resolution or the variation of measured data makes it hard to estimate the maximum shear modulus from pressuremeter test results. This study suggested the methodology estimating the maximum shear modulus from pressuremeter test directly, based on the curve fitting of reloading curve. In addition, the difference was taken into account between the stress state around the probe in reloading and that of the in-situ state. Pressuremeter tests were conducted for 15 cases using a large calibration chamber, together with a number of reference tests. The maximum shear moduli taken from suggested method were compared with those from empirical correlation and bender element test.