• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.725-733
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• 2022

This study applied a hydraulic rock splitting system equipped with a hybrid packer to the bench-cut method. The hybrid packer system is an improvement of the packer developed in previous studies; it is designed efficiently to reduce vibration and noise during rock excavation by combining the two functions of inducing hydraulic fractures using injection pressure and then expanding and extending them using a rubber packer. Field experiments assessed the efficiency of rock excavation with respect to the injection conditions; the adjusted experimental conditions included the distance from the free surface and the test holes drilled at the top of the slope and the injection settings. Using a separation of 5 m left some unexcavated parts, but using a separation of 1 m left no unexcavated parts. The hydraulic fractures generated by the injection pressure developed generally parallel to the free surface and expanded and extended as the rubber packer expanded, thus facilitating bench-cut excavation. For hydraulic rock splitting to be broadly applicable to bench-cut rock excavation, it is important to accumulate results from many field experiments conducted under varying experimental conditions for various types of rockmass.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.226-233
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• 1998

Microcracks in rock materials, whether natural or induced, provide useful information on the engineering performance of in situ rockmasses. A population of preferentially oriented microcracks has observable effects on the physical properties of a rockmass, but their effects may not be evident if the rock material is highly anisotropic due to other causes. An experimental program was undertaken to investigate the effect of rock fabrics on the physical properties of rock materials. In this study, anisotropy in the circumferential wave velocity and the direction of induced fractures under axial point loading were measured. Rock specimens (NX-size) of the leucocractic Pocheon granite were cored from rock blocks, retaining the relative directions of each specimen. Another set of specimens was prepared from the rock cores of the same meterial, obtained in the field. The master orientation line (MOL) was set to be the representative direction of the microcracks in the specimen. Variation of the circumferential wave velocity of each specimen was then measured along the core, keeping the MOL as reference. The direction of the minimum wave velocity was nearly perpendicular to the direction of the MOL. Coring of smaller-sized (EX-size), concentric specimens from the NX specimens were then followed, and axial point loading was applied. The direction of induced fractures due to axial point loading was closely related to the MOL direction, confirming the prior test result.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.16 no.5 s.64
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• pp.413-421
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• 2006

In order to explain entirely dynamic fracture process induced by blasting in rock mass, it needs to consider detonation pressure and gas pressure acting on blasthole wall simultaneously. In this study, prior to simulating the coupling between gas flow and rock mass, we analyzed effects of gas pressure-time history, length of cracks and equation of state adopted to calculate the gas pressure on the gas flow within a radial fracture created by single-hole blasting. The effects were investigated on two assumptions: (a) the radial fracture was composed of 5 cracks which were 0.01 m in length and 0.001 m in asperity each and (b) the PETN explosive which diameter was 36 mm was charged in a blasthole of 45 mm diameter. It was concluded that the maximum gas pressure and its travel time were dependent on characteristics of charged explosives and geometrical properties of radial fracture.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.65-72
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• 2010

Crack-controlled blasting method which utilizes notched charge hole has been proposed in order to achieve smooth fracture plane and minimize the excavation damage zone. In this study, the blast models, which have a notched charge hole, were analyzed using dynamic fracture process analysis software to investigate the effect of the geometry of a notched charge hole and decoupling indexes of the charge hole on crack growth control in blasting. As a result, crack extension increased and damage crack decreased with the notch length. Ultimately, stress increment factors and resultant fracture patterns with different notch length and width were analyzed in order to examine the effect factors on the crack growth controlling in rock blasts using a notched charge hole.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.235-243
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• 2011

In this study, a control blast method, which utilizes crack guide holes, is suggested to achieve smooth fracture plane and minimize blast damage zone (BDZ) in smooth blasting. In order to verify the effectiveness of crack guide holes on the fracture plane control in blasting, fracture process analyses which consider regular smooth blasting and guide hole smooth blasting had been conducted and the fracture planes resulting from the analyses had been compared. The analyses models considered the ignition of the blast holes using detonation cords and each guide hole placed between blast holes. From the results, the smooth blasting utilizing guide holes showed lower fracture plane roughness than regular smooth blasting method in the hole spacing range between 20 to 40cm.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.230-242
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• 2019

While various automatic rock fracture survey methods have been researched, the evaluation of the accuracy of these methods raises issues due to the absence of a metric which fully expresses the similarity between automatic and manual fracture maps. Therefore, this paper proposes a geometry similarity metric which is especially designed to determine the overall similarity of fracture maps and to evaluate the accuracy of rock fracture survey methods by a single number. The proposed metric, Scanline Intersection Similarity (SIS), is derived by conducting a large number of scanline surveys upon two fracture maps using Python code. By comparing the frequency of intersections over a large number of scanlines, SIS is able to express the overall similarity between two fracture maps. The proposed metric was compared with Intersection Over Union (IoU) which is a widely used evaluation metric in computer vision. Results showed that IoU is inappropriate for evaluating the geometry similarity of fracture maps because it is overly sensitive to minor geometry differences of thin elongated objects. The proposed metric, on the other hand, reflected macro-geometry differences rather than micro-geometry differences, showing good agreement with human perception. The metric was further applied to evaluate the accuracy of a deep learning-based automatic fracture surveying method which resulted as 0.674 (SIS). However, the proposed metric is currently limited to 2D fracture maps and requires comparison with rock joint parameters such as RQD.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.53-62
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• 1997

Fracture mechanics properties of rock materials can he applied to predict the distribution of natural fractures in rock masses, and also to assess the safety of rock slopes and underground structures. In this study, rock fracture toughness and other fracture rrechanics properties of sorne lithologies showing apparently rock-property-controlled distribution of natural fractures were measured. Propagation behaviors of natural and experirnental fractures were also characterized both qualitatively and quantitatively, in terns of the propagation types and sorne statistical parameters. It was concluded that the application of fracture mechanics theories to the ge6logic materials should be based on the geological background and evidences.

• Explosives and Blasting
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.49-55
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• 2008

Mechanical excavation techniques employing tunnel boring machines (TBM) and rock splitters have been proposed to minimize rock damage for tunnel and underground waste repository facilities. Such a mechanical excavation, however, is extremely expensive and not applicable in all cases. For these reasons, controlled blasting using notched charge holes have been suggested to achieve crack growth along specific directions and inhibit growth along other directions. This study introduces a dynamic fracture process analysis code to simulate fracture processes of rock which has a notched charge hole.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.219-229
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• 1994

Since groundwater flow in fractured rocks is controlled by the distribution of fractures irregu1arly developed in space, it is not possible to understand the hydraulic characteristics of fractured aquifers using Theis equation which is applicable only to homogeneous isotropic confined aquifer. This study deals with the theoretical background of the fractal groundwater flow model with leakage, the methodology of calculation of the hydraulic parameters, and the application of the developed model to field data. From the result of the application of the fractal model to two field data in Hongcheon and Yusung areas, we obtained a good match between theoretical curves and observed curves, with the same hydraulic parameters at the pumping well and the observation well. In the two pumping test analyses, we have determined 1.9 of the fractal dimension. This means that the dimension of groundwater flow at these two sites is slightly smaller than radial flow.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.22 no.11
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• pp.55-64
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• 2006

It is very Important to predict the damage zone of a rock mass induced by blasting for the excavation of an underground cavity such as a tunnel, as the damage zones incur mechanical and hydraulic instability of the rock mass potentially. Complicated blasting processes that can hinder the proper characterization of the damage zone can be effectively represented by two loading mechanisms. The first mechanism is the dynamic impulsive load-generating stress waves that radiate outwards immediately after detonation. This load creates a crushed annulus along with cracks around the blasthole. The second is the gas pressure that remains for an extended time after detonation. As the gas pressure reopens some arrested cracks and extends these, it contributes to the final structure of the damage zone induced by the blasting. This paper presents a simple method to evaluate the damage zone induced by gas pressure during rock blasting. The damage zone is characterized by analyzing crack propagations from the blasthole. To do this, a model of a blasthole with a number of radial cracks that are equal in length in a homogeneous infinite elastic plane is considered. In this model, crack propagation is simulated through the use of only two conditions: a crack propagation criterion and the mass conservation of the gas. The results show that the stress intensity factor of a crack decreases as the crack propagates from the blasthole, which determines the crack length. In addition, it was found that the blasthole pressure continues to decrease during crack propagation.