• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.31-39
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• 2020

Shear wave velocity (or shear modulus) is very important in the evaluation of seismic performance of a fill dam under an earthquake. A shear wave velocity profile can be determined by surface wave method such as HWAW and SASW methods but this profile has uncertainty caused by spatial variation of material property in a fill dam. This uncertainty in shear wave velocity profile could be considered using a coefficient of variation of material property in the reliability based analysis. In this paper, the possible 600 shear wave velocity profiles in the core and rockfill zone of fill dam were generated by the random shear wave velocity profile generation method, proposed by Hwang and Park, based on the field shear wave velocity profiles determined by the HWAW and SASW methods. And, through the statistical analysis of generated shear wave velocity profiles in the fill dam, the coefficient of variation (COV) of shear wave velocity with depth were evaluated for the core and rock filled zone of fill dam in Korea.

• Geotechnical Engineering
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.33-44
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• 1988

The Taechong Dam completed in 1980 is a composite dam at which a junction was formed partly by butting the core against the end face of the concrete gravity section and partly by the core overlapping the upstream face of the concrete. In order to evaluate the performance of the junction, the interfaces between the concrete dam and core of the embankment dam were well instrumented with total pressure cells and piezometers. A nonlinear incremental finite element analysis simulating its construction behaviour was carried out under plane strain conditions. Material parameters for the core are determined from triaxial tests on the specimens, sampled in the quarry site and compacted to the field dry density at the field moisture content. Material parameters for the filter, transition materials and the rockfill are estimated from literature. When compared with the earth pressures measured at the interfaces, the analytical results show good agreement in the core, however, there are some discrepancy in the shell. A nonlinear model for pore pressure response is used successfully to predict the pore pressures at the interface in the core.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.149-162
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• 2001

Longitudinal cracks have occurred on the crest of dams soon after their construction of two earth-rocfill dams located in Samlangjin. They are a pair of pumped storage dams constructed for generation of electrical power. The upper dam and lower dam are subjected to the variation of water level more than 10m once in a day alteratively. This paper deals with the finding of possible causes for longitudinal cracks about upper dam. The dominant cause was considered to be due to fluctuation of water load, for which numerical analysis was carried out using the hyperbolic model. In order to obtain parameters necessary to the analysis, a series of triaxial tests was performed for both core and rock material. Also dynamic triaxial test was performed to obtain dynamic properties of soils, which could be used as input data to simulate frequent variation of stress change due to the water fluctuation. It was known from the numerical analysis that the confining pressure of upper 4m from the top of the crest become negative after repeating of water load, meaning that tension cracks occurred in the top portion of the crest. The depth of longitudinal cracks has been investigated by digging test pit on the crest. This results agree with the field observation.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.31 no.6C
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• pp.221-229
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• 2011

A core zone of a fill dam is an important part of a dam for cutoff of water. Therefore, the material properties and behavior characteristics of a core zone are very important factors in an analysis of dam stability. However, the investigation on material properties of actual dam core is extremely rare so far. The material properties have been acquired or estimated by indirect methods like a surface wave surveying or empirical equation. In this research, in-situ and laboratory tests were conducted during dismantling an existing dam directly to investigate characteristics of the core zone in terms of the depth and transient variation of properties after construction of the dam. Dynamic material properties like shear wave velocity and shear modulus were measured and compared to other existing empirical correlations. In addition, aging characteristics of dynamic material properties were investigated by a series of laboratory tests.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.141-150
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• 1987

The Soyanggang Dam completed in 1973 was well instrumented during construction period. The measured results for stresses and movements of the embankment have already been published elsewhere, but theoretical analyses have not been made until now. This study intends to analyze the stress and deformation behavior of the embankment numerically which have been subjected to the load of materials during construction and water load during impounding. The constitutive law used for the analyses is hyperbolic model developed by Duncan et al., and a nonlinear incremental finite element analysis simulating its contruction steps is. used in this study. Hyperbolic parameters for each Zone are estimated from literature. The results obtained from the theoretical analyses clearly show deformation characteristics and stress vectors in arbitrary section of the dam. The analytical results ate well agreed with the measured deformations at the maximum cross section, however, there are some discrepancy in horizontal movements and in stresses generated in the core zone. From the numerical analyses and its comparison with the measured values, it is charaterized that relatively large construction settlements occurred in core zone, overburden pressure in the core zone was considerably reduced by arching effect, and tension zones might occur near both abutments because of the large horizontal displacement.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.245-255
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• 2008

The variation of the electrical property of embankment material was analyzed from laboratory experiments and the result of field survey, in order to enhance the interpretation of electrical resistivity survey frequently used for safety assessment of embankment. At first, the kaolinite, showing similar physical property with core material of embankment, was used to examine the variation of the resistivity value according to degree of consolidation. The test showed that a drop of shear strength induces increase of resistivity value regardless of degree of water content. This result means that porous zones of weak core material in embankment may be appeared as highly resistive part in the electrical resistivity survey. This observation implies that it may fail to detect weak core material by electrical method, if we only try to and zones showing low resistivity value. And, we performed Standard Penetration Test (SPT) to analyze the correlation between electrical property and ground stiffness. Finally, a mechanism to describe the variation of electrical resistivity due to grouting effect was proposed and real field data were analyzed.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.32 no.11
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• pp.51-60
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• 2016

In determining a shear wave velocity (Vs) profile model based on field tests for dams, the uncertainties always exist. These uncertainties are caused by spatial variations of material properties in each dam and between dams and should be considered in determining Vs profile model for dams. In this paper, these uncertainties are evaluated and Vs profile model for core zone of fill dam in Korea is proposed using the shear wave velocity profiles determined in seven fill dams. The proposed Vs profile model is compared with Kim's model and Sawada-Takahashi model widely used for evaluation of Vs profile of core zone of fill dam.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.73-83
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• 2006

Seepage analysis through unsaturated zone based on the theory of unsaturated flow is commonly performed to evaluate dam safety. However, the concepts of unsaturated soil behavior have not been transferred into the hands of practicing geotechnical engineers since the problems involving unsaturated soils often have the appearances of being extremely complex. There is variability and uncertainty associated with the unsaturated hydraulic properties that in turn will lead to variability in predicting unsaturated soil behavior such as seepage rate and the pore water pressure distribution. In this paper, measurements of the soil-water characteristic curve and saturated hydraulic conductivity for the core material of dam were conducted. Then, finite element stochastic analysis was used to capture the effect of unsaturated hydraulic properties on the seepage behavior of dam. It is observed that the amount of seepage increases, as the values of unsaturated soil parameters a and n increase. The values of m and p showed opposite trend.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.25 no.12
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• pp.87-105
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• 2009

Nonlinear dynamic deformation characteristics, expressed in terms of normalized shear modulus reduction curve (G/$G_{max}-\log\gamma$, G/$G_{max}$ curve) and damping curve (D-$\log\gamma$), are important input parameters with shear wave velocity profile ($V_s$-profile) in the seismic analysis of (new or existing) fill dam. In this paper, the reasonable and economical methods to evaluate the nonlinear dynamic deformation characteristics for core zone and rockfill zone respectively are presented. For the core zone, 111 G/$G_{max}$ curves and 98 damping curves which meet the requirements of core material were compiled and representative curves and ranges were proposed for the three ranges of confining pressure (0~100 kPa, 100 kPa~200 kPa, more than 200 kPa). The reliability of the proposed curves for the core zone were verified by comparing with the resonant column test results of two kinds of core materials. For the rockfill zone, 135 G/$G_{max}$ curves and 65 damping curves were compiled from the test results of gravelly materials using large scale testing equipments. The representative curves and ranges for G/$G_{max}$ were proposed for the three ranges of confining pressure (0~50 kPa, 50 kPa~100 kPa, more than 100 kPa) and those for damping were proposed independently of confining pressure. The reliability of the proposed curves for the rockfill zone were verified by comparing with the large scale triaxial test results of rockfill materials in the B-dam which is being constructed.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.214-220
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• 2008

The distortion effect of electrical response for two-dimensional (2-D) DC resistivity method was verified in terms of 2-D inversion result of synthetic data obtained by three-dimensional (3-D) modeling, which is frequently applied to assess the safety of center core-type fill dam structure. The distortion effect is due to 2-D interpretation for 3-D structure. By the modeling analysis, we found that the water level is correctly described in the resistivity section around the middle part rather than each end side of the embankment due to the 3-D terrain effect, when the material of the embankment is assumed as horizontally uniform. And when we set the slope of outer rock fill part as uniform. the sharper the slope of the center core is, the more similar the resistivity section reflects. On the other hand, when the slope of the rock fill is steep, the resistivity section shows the water level at lower position than the real one, and the 3-D distortion effect at the end side of the embankment was enhanced.