• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.13-22
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• 2021

Pile or column supported embankments have been increasingly employed to construct highway or railway embankments over soft soils. Piles or columns of stiffer material installed in the soft ground can provide the necessary support by transferring the embankment load to a firm stratum using a soil arching. However, there has been reported to occur a relatively large differential settlement between the piles and the untreated soils. Geosynthetic reinforced pile or column supported embankment (GRPS) is often used to minimize the differential settlement. Two dimensional finite element anlyses have been performed on both the column supported embankments and the geogrid reinforced column supported embankments by using a PLAXIS 2D to evaluate the soil arching effect. Based on the results obtained from finite element analyses, the stress reduction ratio decreases as the area replacement ratio increases in the column supported embankments. For the geogrid reinforced column supported embankments, the geogrid reinforcemnt can reduce differential settlements effectively. In additon, the use of stiffer geogrid is appeared to be more effective in reducing the differential settlements.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.11-22
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• 2009

Tunnel excavation with several sections and appropriate auxiliary measures such as face bolt and pre-grouting are widely used in case of weak and less rigid ground for the stability of a tunnel face during excavation. This papers first described the evaluation methods proposed in technical literature to maintain the tunnel face stable, and then studied by FEM analysis whether face reinforcement is need in what degree of ground deformation and strength features for the stability of a tunnel face when excavating by full excavation with sub-bench. Lastly, a three dimensional FEM analysis was performed to study how the tunnel face itself and the ground around the tunnel behave depending on different bolt layouts, length of bolts, number of bolts. There were relative differences in comparison of results on the stability of a tunnel face by a theoretical evaluation methods and FEM analysis, but the same in reinforced effect of face. It was found that the stability of a tunnel face can be obtained with face bolt installed longer than 1.0D (tunnel width), bolt density of about 1 bolt per every $1.5\;m^2$ (layout of grid type), and reinforcement area of $120^{\circ}$ arch area of upper section.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.18 no.7
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• pp.37-47
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• 2017

In this study, a series of full-scale field tests on prebored and precast steel pipe piles and the corresponding numerical analysis have been conducted in order to study the characteristics of pile load-settlement relations and shear stress transfer at the pile-soil interface. Dynamic pile load tests (EOID and restrike) have been performed on the piles and the estimated design pile loads from EOID and restrike tests were analysed. Class-A type numerical analyses conducted prior to the pile loading tests were 56~105%, 65~121% and 38~142% respectively of those obtained from static load tests. In addition, design loads estimated from the restrike tests indicate increases of 12~60% compared to those estimated in the EOID tests. The EOID tests show large end bearing capacity while the restrike tests demonstrate increased skin friction. When impact energy is insufficient during the restrike tests, the end bearing capacity may be underestimated. It has been found that total pile capacity would be reasonably estimated if skin friction from the restrike tests and end bearing capacity from the EOID are combined. The load-settlement relation measured from the static pile load tests and estimated from the numerical modelling is in general agreement until yielding occurs, after which results from the numerical analyses substantially deviated away from those obtained from the static load tests. The measured pile behaviour from the static load tests shows somewhat similar behaviour of perfectly-elastic plastic materials after yielding with a small increase in the pile load, while the numerical analyses demonstrates a gradual increase in the pile load associated with strain hardening approaching ultimate pile load. It has been discussed that the load-settlement relation mainly depends upon the stiffness of the ground, whilst the shear transfer mechanism depends on shear strength parameters.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.275-283
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• 2012

Steel Plate for Rebar Connection was recently developed to splice rebars in delayed slab-wall joints in high-rise building, slurry wall-slab joints, temporary openings, etc. It consists of several couplers and a thin steel plate with shear key. Cyclic loading tests on slab-wall joints were conducted to verify structural behavior of the joints having Steel Plate for Rebar Connection. For comparison, joints with Rebend Connection and without splices were also tested. The joints with Steel Plate for Rebar Connection showed typical flexural behavior in the sequence of tension re-bar yielding, sufficient flexural deformation, crushing of compression concrete, and compression rebar buckling. However, the joints with Rebend Connection had more bond cracks in slabs faces and spalling in side cover-concrete, even though elastic behavior of the joints was similar to that of the joints with Steel Plate for Re-bar Connection. Consequently, the joints with Rebend Connection had less strengths and deformation capacities than the joints with Steel Plate for Re-bar Connection. In addition, stiffness of the joints with Rebend Connection degraded more rapidly than the other joints as cyclic loads were applied. This may be caused by low elastic modulus of re-straightened rebars and restraightening of kinked bar. For two types of diameters (13mm and 16mm) and two types of grades (SD300 and SD400) of rebars, the joints with Steel Plate for Rebar Connection had higher strength than nominal strength calculated from actual material properties. On the contrary, strengths of the joints with Rebend Connection decreased as bar diameter increased and as grade becames higher. Therefore, Rebend Connection should be used with caution in design and construction.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.21-30
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• 2011

As well known, dowel bars are used to transfer traffic load acting on one edge to another edge of concrete slab in concrete pavement system. The dowel bars widely used in South Korea are round shape steel bar and they shows satisfactory performance under bending stress which is developed by repetitive traffic loading and environment loading. However, they are not invulnerable to erosion that may be caused by moisture from masonry joint or bottom of the pavement system. Especially, the erosion could rapidly progress with saline to prevent frost of snow in winter time. The problem under this circumstance is that the erosion not only drops strength of the steel dower bar but also comes with volume expansion of the steel dowel bar which can reduce load transferring efficiency of the steel dowel bar. To avoid this erosion problem in reasonable expenses, dowers bars with various materials are being developed. Fiber reinforced plastic(FRP) dower that is presented in this paper is suggested as an alternative of the steel dowel bar and it shows competitive resistance against erosion and tensile stress. The FRP dowel bar is developed in tube shape and is filled with high strength no shrinkage. Several slab thickness designs with the FRP dowel bars are performed by evaluating bearing stress between the dowel bar and concrete slab. To calculated the bearing stresses, theoretical formulation and finite element method(FEM) are utilized with material properties measured from laboratory tests. The results show that both FRP tube dowel bars with diameters of 32mm and 40mm satisfy bearing stress requirement for dowel bars. Also, with consideration that lean concrete is typical material to support concrete slab in South Korea, which means low load transfer efficiency and, therefore, low bearing stress, the FRP tube dowel bar can be used as a replacement of round shape steel bar.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.73-80
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• 2022

In this study, details of NRC beam-column connections were developed in which beam and columns pre-assembled in factories using steel angles were bolted on site. The developed joint details are NRC-J type and NRC-JD type. NRC-J type is a method of tensile joining with TS bolts to the side and lower surfaces of the side plate of the NRC column and the end plate of the NRC beam. NRC-JD type has a rigid joint with high-strength bolts between the NRC beam and the side of the NRC column for shear, and with lap splices of reinforcing bar penetrating the joint and the beam main reinforcement for bending. For the seismic performance evaluation of the joint, three specimens were tested: an NRC-J specimen and NRC-JD specimen with NRC beam-column joint details, and an RC-J specimen with RC beam-column joint detail. As a result of the repeated lateral load test, the final failure mode of all specimens was the bending fracture of the beam at the beam-column interface. Compared to the RC-J specimen, the maximum strength of the specimen by the positive force was 10.1% and 29.6% higher in the NRC-J specimen and the NRC-JD specimen, respectively. Both NRC joint details were evaluated to secure ductility of 0.03 rad or more, the minimum total inter-story displacement angle required for the composite intermediate moment frame according to the KDS standard (KDS 41 31 00). At the slope by relative storey displacemet of 5.7%, the NRC-J specimen and the NRC-JD specimen had about 34.8% and 61.1% greater cumulative energy dissipation capacity than the RC specimen. The experimental strength of the NRC beam-column connection was evaluated to be 30% to 53% greater than the theoretical strength according to the KDS standard formula, and the standard formula evaluated the joint performance as a safety side.