• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.215-225
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• 1996

All the radionuclides in high-level nuclear waste will decay to harmless levels eventually but for some radionuclides decay is so slow that their radiation remains dangerous for times on the order of tens or hundreds of thousands of years. At the present time, the most favorite disposal plan for high-level radioactive waste is a mined geological disposal in which canister enclosing stable solid form of radioactive waste is placed in mined cavities locating hundred meters below the surface. The chief hazard in such disposal is dissolution of radionuclides from the waste in the groundwater that will eventually carry the dissolved radionuclides to surface environments. The hazard from possible escape of the radionuclides through groundwater can be delayed by engineered and geologic barriers. The engineered barriers can become useless by unexpected geologic catastrophe such as volcanism, earthquake, and tectonic movement and by fraudulent work such as careless construction, improperly welded canisters within the first few decades or centuries. As a result, dangerously radioactive waste which is still intensively radioactive is directly exposed to attack by moving groundwater. All the more, it is almost impossible to control repositories for times more than 10,000 years. Therefore, naturally controlled geologic, barriers whose properties will not be changed within 10,000 years are important to guarantee the safety of repositories of high-level radioactive waste. In Sweden and France, the suitability of granite for the mined geological disposal of high-level waste has been studied intensively. According to the research in Sweden and France, granites has the following physio-chemical characteristics which can delay the transportation of radionuclide by groundwater. First, the permeabilities of granites decreases as the depth increases and is $10^{-8}{\sim}10^{-12}m/s$ at depth below 300 m. Second, groundwater at depth below 300 m has pH=7-9 and reducing condition (Eh=-0.1~0.4). This geochemical condition is desirable to prevent both canister and solid waste from corrosion. Third most radionuclides are not transported by low solubilities and some radionuclide with high solubility such as Cs and Sr are retarded by absorption of geologic media through which ground water flows. Therefore, if high-level waste is disposed at depth below 300 m in the granite body which has a low permeability and is geologically stable more than 10,000 years, the safety of repositories from the hazard due to radionuclide escape can guaranteed for more than 10,000 years.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2006.03a
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• pp.86-95
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• 2006

Brillouin backscatter is a type of reflection that occurs when light is shone into an optical fibre. Brillouin reflections are very sensitive to changes in the fibre arising from external effects, such as temperature, strain and pressure. We report here several case studies on the measurement of strain using Brillouin reflections. A mechanical bending test of an I beam, deployed with both fiber optic sensors and conventional strain gauge rosettes, was performed with the aim of evaluating: (1) the capability and technical limit of the DTSS technology for strain profile sensing; (2) the reliability of strain measurement using fiber optic sensor. The average values of strains obtained from both DTSS and strain gauges (corresponding to the deflection of I beam) showed a linear relationship and an excellent one-to-one match. A practical application of DTSS technology as an early warning system for land sliding or subsidence was examined through a field test at a hillside. Extremely strong, lightweight, rugged, survivable tight-buffered cables, designed for optimal strain transfer to the fibre, were used and clamped on the subsurface at a depth of about 50cm. It was proved that DTSS measurements could detect the exact position and the progress of strain changes induced by land sliding and subsidence. We also carried out the first ever distributed dynamic strain measurement (10Hz) on the Korean Train eXpress(KTX) railway track in Daejeon, Korea. The aim was to analyse the integrity of a section of track that had recently been repaired. The Sensornet DTSS was used to monitor this 85m section of track while a KTX train passed over. In the repaired section the strain increases to levels of 90 microstrain, whereas in the section of regular track the strain is in the region of 30-50 microstrain. The results were excellent since they demonstrate that the DTSS is able to measure small, dynamic changes in strain in rails during normal operating conditions. The current 10km range of the DTSS creates a potential to monitor the integrity of large lengths of track, and especially higher risk sections such as bridges, repaired track and areas at risk of subsidence.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.343-350
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• 2017

Amid increasingly saturated ground space, development of underground space has been booming throughout the world and excavation has been underway near the structure above or under the ground level. But the ground subsidence caused by improper or poor construction technologies, underground water leakage, sudden changes of stratum and the problem with earth retaining system component has been emerged as hot social issue. To deal with such problems nationwide, establishment of preventive and proactive disaster management and rapid restoration system has been pushed now. In this study, collection of the data on technology development trend to secure the underground safety was made, taking into account of internal change elements (changing groundwater level, damage to underground utilities, etc) and external change elements (vehicle load, earthquake and ground excavation, etc) during excavation. Amid the growing need of ground behavior analysis, ground subsidence evaluation technology, safe excavation to prevent ground subsidence and reinforcement technology, improvement of rapid restoration technology in preparation for ground subsidence and development of independent capability, this study is intended to introduce the technology development in a bid to prevent the ground subsidence during excavation. It's categorized into prediction/evaluation technology, complex detect technology, waterproof reinforcement technology, rapid restoration technology and excavation technology which, in part, has been in process now.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.11
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• pp.230-236
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• 2018

Earthquakes over 5.0 on the Richter scale have recently occurred in Korea, which has led to interest in the seismic safety of structures. If a water storage facility is damaged by an earthquake, the water could leak, and the insufficient water would make fire suppression difficult. Therefore, a water storage facility should satisfy safety requirements for earthquakes. In this study, the seismic performance of a water tank was improved by installing a lead rubber bearing between the foundation and the tank. It designed the lead rubber bearing available to the existed concrete foundation. ANSYS was used for modeling to consider the interaction between the fluid and structure of the tank and the hydrostatic and hydrodynamic pressure using four seismic waves. In the case of hydrostatic pressure at 2.5 water level, full level, the same stress appeared irrespective of whether the seismic isolation was installed. When hydrostatic pressure and hydrodynamic pressures are applied at the same time, the seismic-isolated water tank showed less seismic force, and the damping ratio was lower than that of general seismic isolation. This occurred because the weight of the water tank is much smaller than the stiffness of the seismic isolation. The result is expected to be used for further research on seismic capacity evaluation for water tanks.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.93-101
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• 2019

The objective of this study is to develop a model which can predict the seismic performance of the slope relatively accurately and efficiently by using artificial neural network(ANN) technique. The quantification of such the seismic performance of the slope is not easy task due to the randomness and the uncertainty of the earthquake input and slope model. Under these circumstances, probabilistic seismic fragility analyses of slope have been carried out by several researchers, and a closed-form equation for slope seismic performance was proposed through a multiple linear regression analysis. However, a traditional statistical linear regression analysis has shown a limit that cannot accurately represent the nonlinearistic relationship between the slope of various conditions and seismic performance. In order to overcome these problems, in this study, we attempted to apply the ANN to generate prediction models of the seismic performance of the slope. The validity of the derived model was verified by comparing this with the conventional multi-linear and multi-nonlinear regression models. As a result, the models obtained through the ANN basically showed excellent performance in predicting the seismic performance of the slope, compared to the models obtained by the statistical regression analyses of the previous study.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.59-66
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• 2021

The earthquakes are the natural disasters that can cause the most serious damage to civil structures. Therefore, various studies are being conducted to secure the safety of structures against earthquakes. Most studies on the safety or mechanism of civil structures during earthquakes are being conducted based on lab scale test, because real structure tests are impossible when considering the scale of civil structures. The scaling factor proposed by Iai is mainly cited, but when applying the scaling factor proposed by Iai, there are many difficulties in selecting the structural members necessary for the production of the lab scale model. This is because when applying the scaling factor proposed by Iai, the scaling factor must be applied to the elastic modulus, which is the material property of the structure. Therefore, a new method based on Iai's 's similarity law for determining scale factor is applied in this study where the material property of real structure is same as that of lab-scale model. Through the results of this study, it is considered that the characteristics of the structure calculated through the lab scale model test can more accurately reflect the characteristics of the real structure.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.41-53
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• 2022

In the excavation work like blasting/excavator work bordering on the urban railway, the dynamic safety of railway structures like tunnel, open-cut box structure and elevated bridge was investigated by numerical analysis in this study. The practically presented criteria on influential zones at the blasting work in the construction industry was numerically checked in cases of the precise vibration-controlled blasting (type II) and the small scale vibration-controlled blasting (type III) and it was shown that the criteria on blasting work methods needed to be supplemented through continuous field tests and numerical analyses. The influence of excavation vibration by mechanical excavators was especially investigated in case of earth auger and breaker. The numerical analysis of tunnel shows that the criteria on vibration velocities from the regression analysis of field test values was conservative. The amplification phenomenon of excavating vibration velocity was shown passing through the backfilling soil between the earth auger and the open-cut box structure. It was shown that the added-vibration on the superstructure of elevated bridge was occurred at the bottom of pile like earthquake when the excavator vibration was arriving at the pile toe. The systematic and continuous research on the vibration effect from excavating works was needed for the safety of urban railway structures and nearby facilities.

• Korean Journal of Heritage: History & Science
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• v.38
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• pp.305-327
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• 2005

Although the stone pagoda in Mireuk Temple site, Iksan, Cholla Province has been collapsed long time ago, few historical record has clearly explained the reason why the pagoda was collapsed and when. The west side of the pagoda have been destroyed from top to the sixth floor and the broken or damaged stone materials have been piled up in disorder. the lower part in the west was reinforced and enclosed by a stone embankment levelled to the height of the first storey of the pagoda. With no record informing the historical fact when it was made and by whom, it is only presumed that the embankment may have been built long time ago in order to prevent remains from further destruction. In the second chapter of the study, it has been tried to restore a reasonable historical background of the pagoda based on records or comments found in literatures such as traditional poetry and essays in chronological order. The collapsed slope in the west side, just above the embankment surrounding the lower part of the pagoda, was concreted in 1915 during the Japanese colonial period. Then in 1998, the Jeollabukdo has examined the structural safety of the pagoda. The Cultural Properties Committee has decided have the concrete layer removed and moreover to take apart the whole pagoda. It is also included that the disassembled stone materials should be given proper conservation treatments before being put into the place where they were in the reassembling process. The front view of the collapsed phase of the pagoda was revealed when the concrete-covered layer was removed. A hypothesis was built that there may be as many different appearances of collapsed pagoda depending on natural causes such as earthquake, sunken foundation, flood and typhoon. In chapter three, characteristic features were classified by examining various images of pagodas destroyed by different natural reasons mentioned in historical records. The chapter four dealt with comparison and analysis on the conditions shown in the stone pagoda in Mireuk Temple site and other examples studied in advance. The result of the study revealed that though having been made higher than the ground surface, the podium or the base of the pagoda actually has been eroded by rain and water. The erosion is supposed not only to have been proceeded for a long time without break but also to have caused the first storey body stone in the west inclined to outward. It has come to a conclusion that the pagoda may have been lead to collapse when the first storey body stone, supporting the whole weight from the upper storeys, became out of upright position and lost its balance. However, no such distinctive features of structural changes shown in pagodas collapsed by natural causes like earthquake, typhoon or sunken basement, have been found in the stone pagoda in Mireuk Temple site.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.583-603
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• 2023

Recently, the advancement of mechanical tunnel boring machine (TBM) technology and the characteristics of subsea railway tunnels subjected to hydrostatic pressure have led to the widespread application of shield TBM methods in the design and construction of subsea railway tunnels. Subsea railway tunnels are exposed in a constant pore water pressure and are influenced by the amplification of seismic waves during earthquake. In particular, seismic loads acting on subsea railway tunnels under various ground conditions such as soft ground, soft soil-rock composite ground, and fractured zones can cause significant changes in tunnel displacement and stress, thereby affecting tunnel safety. Additionally, the dynamic response of the ground and tunnel varies based on seismic load parameters such as frequency characteristics, seismic waveform, and peak acceleration, adding complexity to the behavior of the ground-tunnel structure system. In this study, a finite difference method is employed to model the entire ground-tunnel structure system, considering hydrostatic pressure, for the investigation of dynamic behavior of subsea railway tunnel during earthquake. Since the key factors influencing the dynamic behavior during seismic events are ground conditions and seismic waves, six analysis cases are established based on virtual ground conditions: Case-1 with weathered soil, Case-2 with hard rock, Case-3 with a composite ground of soil and hard rock in the tunnel longitudinal direction, Case-4 with the tunnel passing through a narrow fault zone, Case-5 with a composite ground of soft soil and hard rock in the tunnel longitudinal direction, and Case-6 with the tunnel passing through a wide fractured zone. As a result, horizontal displacements due to earthquakes tend to increase with an increase in ground stiffness, however, the displacements tend to be restrained due to the confining effects of the ground and the rigid shield segments. On the contrary, peak compressive stress of segment significantly increases with weaker ground stiffness and the effects of displacement restrain contribute the increase of peak compressive stress of segment.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.25-34
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• 2012

In order to verify that the recently proposed two-parameters site classification system and the corresponding site coefficients are suitable for the local geological conditions in Korea, a comparison was conducted with current Korean seismic code, Eurocode-8, NYC DOT seismic code. The design spectrum of the current Korean seismic code is significantly amplified in the long-period range, whereas the other response spectra, including the proposed two-parameters approach, are significantly amplified in the short-period range, which is a typical geological condition in Korea. In addition, based on the results of site response analyses in the specific $10km{\times}10km$ area of Gyeongju, spatial distributions of site coefficients from site-specific seismic response analyses were compared with the proposed site coefficients, as well as those specified in the current Korean seismic code. The site coefficients ($F_a$ and $F_v$) from the current Korean seismic codes show significantly high spatial error distributions compared with those specified by the two-parameters site classification system. Therefore, the proposed system is suitable for regions of shallow bedrock including the Korean peninsula.