• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.25-34
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• 2009

Since the particle sizes of the coarse materials used in dam or harbor constructions are much larger than those of typical soils, it is desirable that large shear testing apparatuses are used when performing shear tests on the coarse materials to obtain as accurate results as possible. Two large-scale shear testing apparatuses, large direct shear testing apparatus and large triaxial shear testing apparatus, are commonly used. Currently in Korea, however, there have not been many cases in which shear tests were done using the large apparatus due to mainly difficulties in manufacturing, diffusing, and operating them. In present study, both large direct shear tests and large triaxial shear tests were performed on the coarse materials, which are used as dam fill materials, for 6 test cases in which particle sizes, specimen sizes, vertical pressure (confining pressure) conditions were little different, and then, the shear strength characteristics of the materials were compared with the two different shear tests. The test results showed that, by the Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion, overall the shear strength obtained by the large direct shear tests was larger than that by the large triaxial shear tests. Moreover, the shear strength under the normal stress of 1,000 kPa was about 10 to 70% larger for the large direct shear tests than for the large triaxial shear tests, revealing the larger differences in the coarse materials, compared to typical soils.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2005.03a
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• pp.1233-1240
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• 2005

As the geotechnical technologies have grown, the size of civil structures has become bigger than before, thereby requiring large-scale geotechnical testing equipments which can evaluate the mechanical behavior of large size testing materials such as gravel, crushed rock and so on. These kind of large testing equipments are usually used to evaluate the mechanical characteristics of large size material which are applied in the large infra structures like dam, seashore structure, coastal landfill, soil-structure interaction and seismic response of large-scale structure. In this research, state-of-the-art information in the field of geotechnical engineering was collected and summarized for such large-scale experimental equipments as large-scale geo-centrifuge, large-scale triaxial testing machine, large-scale direct shear testing apparatus and large-scale oedometer.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.32 no.6C
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• pp.295-304
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• 2012

In this study, a resonant column testing system which is the largest in Korea has been developed to evaluate the dynamic deformation characteristics of coarse granular geomaterials, and the performance and the applicability of the testing system have been verified. The system has been developed as a typical Stokoe type device whose boundary conditions are fixed bottom and free top with additional mass, and can adopt a large specimen with 200 mm in diameter and 400 mm in height. The driving and measurement instruments are configured as high performance and precision systems, hence the automated testing system is appropriate to drive enough stress and to measure the behavior precisely for the test in practical manner. The dynamic response of the mechanical components and the applicability of the system have been evaluated using metal specimens as well as polyurethane specimens, and its precision was verified by comparing its results with those from other equipment and/or methods. To confirm the applicability of the large system for coarse geomaterials, the resonant column test results from both large and normal scale apparatus for the same material were compared and it was found that the result can be partially affected by scale. Finally, the dynamic deformation characteristics of coarse geomaterial which is used for construction of large dam was evaluated using the large system and its practicality could be confirmed.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.81-91
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• 2005

'Coarse grained material' refers to crushed stones or gravels, and the behaviour of soil containing coarse grained material is not easily defined using the conventional soil mechanics theory due to the influences of large particles, therefore large scale test is essential to investigate their effects. Previous studies have identified the major factors affecting the properties of coarse grained materials by using large scale shear testing apparatus, such as maximum particle size, water content, density and uniformity coefficients. In this paper, the effect of variation of maximum particle size and water content on shear strength was analyzed from the results of large scale shear test. In addition, the fiction coefficient at critical state per vertical load was estimated using the equation proposed by Wood (1998). The sample for the test was obtained from the local quarry sites. Tests results show that the shear strength for 50.8 m maximum particle size is relatively larger than that of 76.3 m and air-dry sample has larger shear strength than saturated sample. In the meantime, the friction coefficient at critical state shows $1.0\sim1.6$ according to the test conditions.

• 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.