• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.8-14
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• 2018

For the purpose of maintenance and prevention of earth fill dams against damage from natural hazards, automatic monitoring through various measuring instruments and resistivity survey has been carried out. Reservoirs and embankments have the structural vulnerability on the agricultural usages since most of them were built more than thirty years ago. The main aim to use monitoring method is to verify the safety and integrity of the dam. Resistivity survey can detect potential weaknesses, such as defective zones, anomalous seepages or internal erosion processes. Permanent resistivity monitoring systems were installed at a reservoir, which daily measurements have been taken every 6 hour. Using monitoring data for one year, anomalous seepage and structural defects were clarified for dam safety. Annual water level fluctuations are around 10 m. During their operation, reservoir dams are subject to a never-ending hydraulic load from the reservoir, which over the years may cause changes in the properties of the inner parts of the dam construction. Detailed analysis of the monitoring results was performed and showed that resistivities at most locations have been very stable over the full monitoring period excluding the effects of water fluctuation and seasons. To investigate the detectability of weak zone using the DC resistivity monitoring, numerical modeling with a simplified model for the drainage at a reservoir dam was also performed. The results showed that the seepage zone near drainage in a reservoir dam could be detected by resistivity response change.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.53-64
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• 2013

Resistivity monitoring is based on the fact that a change in the porosity leads to the changes in water content and fine particles, which alter the electrical resistivity. At every embankment dam, internal erosion always occurs as time passes. The internal erosion generally develops into piping over a long time by backward erosion and concentrated leak, and finally leads to dam failure. Resistivity is known to be very sensitive to the changes in porosity in embankment dams. Thus resistivity monitoring is a reasonable method to find out the leakage zone. However, resistivity is strongly influenced by seasonal variation of temperature, TDS of reservoir water and water level. In this paper. we first installed electrodes permanently at the center of the crest. The electrical resistivity monitoring data was acquired every 6 hours from Apr. 3, 2011 to July. 31, 2012. To analyze the characteristics of monitoring data, each resistivity data was calculated from up to 2,950 data sets. The result indicated a seasonal resistivity variation due to related temperature. Finally, a quantitative method to estimate porosities of the embankment dam from the resistivity monitoring data was analyzed. The applicability and reliability were verified and the importance of electrical resistivity monitoring for obtaining reliable result was emphasized.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.169-174
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• 2018

A total of 594 reservoirs (17%), which are managed by KRC, equipped with earthquake-resistant facilities whereas remaining ones did not. In addition, reservoirs were placed without the effect of geological structures (i.e., fault and lineament). Therefore, development on technique for alleviating the potential hazards by natural disasters along faults and lineaments has required. In addition, an effective reinforcement guideline related to the geological vulnerabilities around reservoirs has required. The final goal of this study is to suggest the effective maintenance for the safety of earth fill dams. A radius 2 km, based on the center of the reservoir in the study area was set as the range of vulnerability impacts of each reservoir. Seismic design, precise safety diagnosis, seismic influence and geological structure were analyzed for the influence range of each reservoir. To classify the vulnerability of geological disasters according to the fault distribution around the reservoir, evaluation index of seismic performance, precise safety diagnosis, seismic influence and geological structure were also developed for each reservoir, which were a component of the vulnerability assessment of geological disasters. As a result, the reservoir with the highest vulnerability to geological disasters in the pilot district was analyzed as Kidong reservoir with an evaluation index of 0.364. Within the radius of 100km from the epicenter of the Pohang earthquake, the number of agricultural infrastructure facilities subject to urgent inspections were 1,180 including reservoirs, pumping stations and intakes. Four reservoirs were directly damaged by earthquake among 724 agricultural reservoirs. As a result of the precise inspection and electrical resistivity survey of the reservoir after the earthquake, it was reported that cracks on the crest of reservoirs were not a cause of concern. However, we are constantly monitoring the safety of agricultural facilities by Pohang aftershocks.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.16 no.8
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• pp.45-49
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• 2015

Using 2D numerical analysis that covers the largest section of the dam body, a process is generally performed when evaluating its stability against seepage. The quantity of seepage is first obtained by assuming that its bottom topography is in the simple form of a rectangle, it is then calculated by reflecting its sectional shape during this process of analyzing the seepage quantity. Considering that various forms of dams are being constructed on various types of ground, thanks to more recent technological advances, it is judged more appropriate to draw a conclusion by means of the results on reflecting the realistic shape and topographical conditions of the dam body through 3D numerical analysis. Therefore, this study intends to present a method designed to carry out safety management by evaluating the correct quantity of water leakage that passes only through the dam body, having excluded other factors that include the amount of rainfall through the 3D FEM analysis.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.65-74
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• 2008

The small and medium sized dams have the fill dam type of a lot of occasions, which are often weak in cases of major floods. For this reason, although a countermeasure is in great need, due to the importance of the facilities and financial situations, no direct safety measures have been taken. In this study, in order to minimize construction expenditure for practical safety measures in cases of major floods, the overflow section of spillway has been analyzed focusing on how the overflow capacity will increase in the case of partially rebuilding a part of the overflow section of spillway favorable for hydraulic conditions. The Labyrinth weir and movable weir was chosen for reconstruction models of the overflow section. Moreover, for analyzing the after-effects of the reconstruction, a small scale dam was temporarily chosen for various experiments such as the hydraulic model testing and the three dimension numerical evaluation through the use of Flow-3D.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.563-572
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• 2010

Both multi-channel temperature monitoring and geophysical electric survey were performed together for an embankment to assess the leakage zone. Temperature variation according to space and time on the inner parts of engineering constructions (e.g.: dam and slope) can be basic information for diagnosing their safety problem. In general, as constructions become superannuated, structural deformation (e.g.: cracks and defects) could be generated by various factors. Seepage or leakage of water through the cracks or defects in old dams will directly cause temperature anomaly. This study shows that the position of seepage or leakage in dam body can be detected by multi-channel temperature monitoring using thermal line sensor. For that matter, diverse temperature monitoring experiments for a leakage physical model were performed in the laboratory. In field application of an old earth fill dam, temperature variations for water depth and for inner parts of boreholes located at downstream slope were measured. Temperature monitoring results for a long time at the bottom of downstream slope of the dam showed the possibility that temperature monitoring can provide the synthetic information about flowing path and quantity of seepage of leakage in dam body. Geophysical data by electrical method are also added to help interpret data.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.29 no.8
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• pp.5-14
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• 2013

Coarse granular geomaterials containing large gravels are broadly used for construction of large geotechnical systems such as dams, levees, railways and backfills. It is necessary to evaluate deformation characteristics of these materials for dynamic analysis, e.g. seismic design. This study presents evaluation of dynamic deformation characteristics of coarse materials using large scale resonant column testing apparatus, which uses specimens with 200 mm in diameter and 400 mm in height, and the effects of gradation characteristics on maximum shear modulus, shear modulus reduction curve and damping characteristics were investigated. From experimental study using rock-fill materials for a dam, we could see that the largest or mean particle size affects the shape of shear modulus reduction curve. When the specimens are prepared under the same conditions for maximum particle size, the coefficient of uniformity affects the confining stress exponent of maximum shear modulus. It could be concluded that the maximum particle size is an factor which affects shear modulus reduction curve, and that the coefficient of uniformity is for small strain shear modulus, especially for the sensitivity to confining stress.