• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.77-84
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• 2008

The existing equations for radial consolidation cannot account for the changes of well resistance with time and cannot predict the appropriate in-situ consolidation curve. In this study, small cylinder cell tests are performed to evaluate the discharge capacity of PVD. Also, a block sample of 1.2 m in diameter and 2.0 m in height was consolidated to observe the change in the drainage capacity with time for three types of PVD. From the test results on a block sample, the drainage curves normalized with initial drainage of each PVD are similar, regardless of the PVD type and the consolidation curve, which is predicted using solutions of radial consolidation based on the discharge capacity measured in a small cylinder cell tests, significantly overestimates the degree of consolidation. The term of well resistance in the radial consolidation solution was back-calculated to fit the consolidation curve of a large block sample and it is defined as the time dependent well resistance factor, L(t). The L(t) was found to be linearly proportional to the dimensionless time factor, Th. It was also shown that the consolidation curve evaluated by using L(t) provides more accurate prediction than the existing solution.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.25 no.10
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• pp.99-110
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• 2009

In order to provide the design criteria, the characteristics of consolidation for soft ground improvement have been investigated using the field banking test performed by the vertical drain method at the northern container section in Busan New Port. Field test results indicated that the estimated degree of consolidation in design stage decreased by about 7% compared with the measured one. This difference is attributed to the fact that the conservative geological properties were applied with relatively high amount of maximum clay mixture ratio during the design stage. Based on this findings, another laboratory oedometer test was implemented to consider various combination of mixture ratio. It was found that the consolidation degree increased in accordance with the increase of sand/silt mixture ratio. Also, the proportion of 10%, 50%, and 40% for sand, silt, and clay, respectively, was observed as the best combination of mixture ratio to the actual measurement, which is very similar to the average grain size distribution in the banking test area. Therefore, it is suggested that the overall geological characteristics as well as the grain size distribution should be considered in design stage to improve the soft ground that contains mixture of sand, silt, and clay.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.13 no.9
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• pp.17-29
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• 2012

To investigate the characteristics of shear strength and soil deformation in soft grounds, in which various vertical drains were placed, two hundreds field monitoring data of embankments performed in thirteen road construction sites at west and south coastal areas of the Korean Peninsula were collected. At first, the relationship between settlement and lateral displacement was investigated into three stages, in which embankment construction works were divided into initial filling stage, final filling stage and stage after complete filling. And then, the relationship of surcharge pressures and embankment heights with undrained shear strength of soft grounds were investigated. The investigation on settlement and lateral displacement illustrated that the increment of lateral flow to the increment of settlement was low during initial filling stage, but increased gradually with filling and showed largest during final filling stage. After complete filling, the lateral displacement was converged, even though the settlement was increased continuously. Therefore, most of lateral flow was occurred during embankment filling. The ratio of the lateral displacement increment to the settlement increment was 20% for initial filling stage, which coincided with the one presented by Tavenas et al.(1979), but became 50% for final filling stage, which was half of the one presented by Tavenas et al.(1979). However, the ratio reduced to 1% to 9%, which was quite lower than the one presented by Tavenas et al.(1979). Shear deformations, even shear failures, were predicted in soft grounds under initial undrained shear strength, since the design heights of embankments were higher than the yield height in all the sites. However, embankment construction would be possible since the yield height became higher than the design height due to improvement of shear strength of soft grounds with application of the vertical drains. In order to perform safely embankments for road constructions, the embankment loads should be designed not to be exceed 5.14 times the initial undrained shear strength of soft grounds and to be less than 3.0 times the undrained shear strength improved with application of vertical drains in soft grounds.