• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.591-602
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• 2020

Several alternative rock-cutting concepts, which are modified from the conventional ones, have been developed lately. Of the concepts, undercutting is one of the latest technologies. In this study, as a fundamental study on the undercutting technique, the rock-cutting mechanism and important parameters of the undercutting were introduced. This study built up cutting test system for evaluating the cutting performance of an actuated undercutting disc cutter (ADC), and carried out a series of cutting tests under different cutting parameters of ADC. The characteristics of cutter forces obtained from ADC rock-cutting tests were analyzed. The both average and peak values of the three directional cutter forces were linearly increased with the increases of linear velocity, penetration depth in vertical direction and eccentricity of ADC.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.66-81
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• 2021

The effects of directional fracture tensor components and first invariant of fracture tensor on deformation moduli and shear moduli of fractured rock masses is analyzed based on regression analysis performed between 3-D fracture tensor parameters and deformability of DFN blocks. Using one or two deterministic joint sets, a total of 224 3-D discrete fracture network (DFN) cube blocks were generated with various configurations of deterministic density and probabilistic size distribution. The fracture tensor parameters were calculated for each generated DFN systems. Also, deformability moduli with respect to three perpendicular direction of the DFN cube blocks were estimated based on distinct element method. The larger the first invariant of fracture tensor, the smaller the values for the deformability moduli of the DFN blocks. These deformability properties present an asymptotic pattern above the certain threshold. It is found that power-law function describes the relationship between the directional deformability moduli and the corresponding fracture tensor components estimated in same direction.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.144-159
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• 2022

The present study developed a sequential approach-based numerical simulator for modeling coupled thermal-hydrological-mechanical (THM) processes in the ground and investigated the computational performance of the coupling analysis algorithm. The present sequential approach linked the two different solvers: an open-source numerical code, OpenGeoSys for solving the thermal and hydrological processes in porous media and a commercial code, FLAC3D for solving the geomechanical response of the ground. A benchmark test of the developed simulator was carried out using a THM problem where an analytical solution is given. The benchmark problem involves the coupled behavior (variations in temperature, pore pressure, stress, and deformation with time) of a fully saturated porous medium which is subject to a point heat source. The results of the analytical solution and numerical simulation were compared and the validity of the numerical simulator was investigated.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.1-19
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• 2022

In this report, new standard, published by Japanese Geotechnical Society, on in-situ stress measurements by hydraulic fracturing was reviewed. In the standard, modification was made for the calculation of fracture re-opening pressure in consideration of fracture surface roughness and residual aperture. The standard also presents how much the system compliance influences the estimation of the fracture re-opening pressure and subsequent in-situ stresses. It is shown that the stiffer the rock mass is, the system compliance should be sufficiently small enough so as to obtain in-situ stress measurement with higher confidence.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.93-106
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• 2022

This study developed applications that allows truck drivers to record ore production data using smart devices at mine sites and to create a daily work report (operation report) in a PC environment. For this, four operating mines in Korea were selected as study areas, and daily work reports used there were investigated. The information elements included in the daily work report of each mine were analyzed. Because the information to be collected for writing ore production data and format of report are different for each mine, four types of applications were developed for the study areas. Ore production data could be recorded by receiving a signal from a Bluetooth beacon and by operating the application directly by the truck driver. The collected data files are uploaded to the cloud server, and the uploaded data files can be converted into a daily work report using the developed applications in a PC environment.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.508-519
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• 2021

In this study, a model was developed to predict the peak particle velocity (PPV) that affects people and the surrounding environment during blasting. Four machine learning models using the k-nearest neighbors (kNN), classification and regression tree (CART), support vector regression (SVR), and particle swarm optimization (PSO)-SVR algorithms were developed and compared with each other to predict the PPV. Mt. Yogmang located in Changwon-si, Gyeongsangnam-do was selected as a study area, and 1048 blasting data were acquired to train the machine learning models. The blasting data consisted of hole length, burden, spacing, maximum charge per delay, powder factor, number of holes, ratio of emulsion, monitoring distance and PPV. To evaluate the performance of the trained models, the mean absolute error (MAE), mean square error (MSE), and root mean square error (RMSE) were used. The PSO-SVR model showed superior performance with MAE, MSE and RMSE of 0.0348, 0.0021 and 0.0458, respectively. Finally, a method was proposed to predict the degree of influence on the surrounding environment using the developed machine learning models.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.385-399
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• 2021

Among human-induced seismicity, fluid production has been one of the causes. In this report, the mechanism that causes an earthquake due to a decrease in the fluid pressure inside the reservoir during fluid extraction is summarized. As case studies, the Lacq gas field in France, the Cerro Prieto geothermal field in Mexico, and the Groningen gas field in the Netherlands, which have become issue recently, were introduced. It is showed that fluid production, ground subsidence, and the presence of existing faults were closely related with the induced seismicity. Therefore, for the development of oil or gas field and geothermal field, it is important to investigate the presence of faults that may cause earthquakes in the reservoir, to monitor ground subsidence during production in real time, and to control production.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.415-427
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• 2021

This technical report briefly introduced the rock cutting splitting method under development. This method is a method of excavating the rock by splitting the block after the rock cutting process. After designing the cutting geometry of the rock face, the chisel is press-fitted to remove the rock block. At this time, when the cutting block is properly designed, the tensile crack propagates smoothly at the bottom of the rock block. An analytical solution was devised to estimate the indentation force required for splitting rock blocks using fracture toughness mode 1 required for tensile crack growth. The impact force of the hydraulic breaker of the excavator was analyzed, and the grade of the excavator that can be constructed according to the rock block design geometry was analyzed.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.578-592
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• 2021

This study performed to investigate the propagation characteristics of overpressure, impulse, vibration in underwater blasting. The difference between air blasting and underwater blasting is that noise and vibration propagate through water as a medium. In some cases, the noise and vibration propagates through various media (rock, water, air, etc.). In this study, the underwater blasting was simulated using AUTODYN, and the propagation characteristics of overpressure, impulse and vibration induced by blasting were analyzed. We mainly focused on the effect of mesh size on the overpressure, impulse and peak particle velocity from the underwater blasting simulation. The numerical results indicated that the overpressure and peak particle velocity tended to decrease as the mesh size increased, while the impulse increased with the mesh size. The results also indicated that the mesh dependence varied depending on the explosive charge and scaled distance.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.20-29
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• 2022

The existence of underground cavity should be considered in the assessment of georisk such as ground subsidence. Even if the shear strength of the ground around the cavity is known, it is difficult to accurately analyze the safety around the cavity due to the uncertainties related to geometric conditions such as the cavity size. In this paper, stability chart representing dimensionless stability constants was proposed based on the ground strength and geometric conditions. Numerical analysis had been carried out accounting for the stability constants such as the ground strength, the adhesion and friction angles, and the size and depth of the underground cavity. The proposed charts can help estimating the stability of ground with underground circular cavity.