• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.201-209
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• 2016

Damages of large embankment dams by recent strong earthquakes in the world highlight the importance of seismic security of dams. Some of recent dam construction projects for water storage and hydropower are located in highly seismic zone, hence the seismic performance evaluation is an important issue. While state-of-the-art numerical analysis technology is generally utilized in practice for seismic performance evaluation of large dams, physical modeling is also carried out where new construction technology is involved or numerical analysis technology cannot simulate the behavior appropriately. Geotechnical centrifuge modeling is widely adopted in earthquake engineering to simulate the seismic behavior of large earth structures, but sometimes it can't be applied for large embankment dams due to various limitations. This study proposes a dynamic centrifuge testing method for large embankment dams and evaluated its applicability. Scaling relations for a case which model scale and g-level are different could be derived considering the stress conditions and predominant period of the structure, which is equivalent to previously suggested scaling relations. The scaling principles and testing method could be verified by modified modeling of models using a model at different acceleration levels. Finally, its applicability was examined by centrifuge tests for an embankment dam in Korea.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.285-294
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• 2002

Embankment Piles, which is subjected to damage due to lateral movement of soft ground, can be classified into pile slab, cap beam pile, and isolated cap pile according to the installation pattern of pile cap. In the cap beam pile and the isolated cap pile method, the soil arch is developed by the different stiffness between pile and soil, and most embankment loads are transferred into embankment piles through soil arch. In these two methods, the difference of soil arch is that the soil arch of the cap beam pile method develops like the arch from of tunnel between cap beams and the soil arch of the isolated cap pile method develops like dome between isolated caps. Therefore, theoretical analysis methods on soil arching effect of the cap beam pile and the isolated cap pile method were respectively proposed according to their own arch form considering the limiting equilibrium of stresses in a crown of soil arch. And a series of model tests were performed both to investigate the load transfer by soil arching in fills above embankment piles and to verify the reliability of the theoretical analysis.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.615-626
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• 2022

The soft clays are widely distributed, and one of the prominent engineering problems is the creep behavior. In order to predict the creep deformation of soft clays in an easier and more acceptable way, a simple creep constitutive model has been proposed in this paper. Firstly, the triaxial creep test data indicated that, the strain-time (𝜀-t) curve showing in the 𝜀-lgt space can be divided into two lines with different slopes, and the time referring to the demarcation point is named as t_EOP. Thereafter, the strain increments occurred after the time t_EOP are totally assumed to be the creep components, and the elastic and plastic strains had occurred before t_EOP. A hyperbolic equation expressing the relationship between creep volumetric strain, stress and time is proposed, with several triaxial creep test data of soft clays verifying the applicability. Additionally, the creep flow law is suggested to be similar with the plastic flow law of the modified Cam-Clay model, and the proposed volumetric strain equation is used to deduced the scaling factor for creep strains. Therefore, a creep constitutive model is thereby established, and verified by successfully predicting the creep principal strains of triaxial specimens.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2002.03a
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• pp.381-388
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• 2002

A series of centrifuge model tests were performed to investigate the behavior of piled bridge abutment subjected to lateral soil movements induced by the construction of approach embankment. In these tests, both the depth of soft clay and the rate of embankment construction are chosen as key parameters to examine the effects on lateral soil movements. The depth of soft clay layer varies from 5.2 m to 11.6 m, and the rate of embankment construction has two types of staged construction(1m/30days, 1m/15days) and instant construction. It is shown that, the distribution of lateral flow induced by stage embankment construction has a trapezoidal distribution. And practical guidelines to check the possibility of some lateral movement of piled abutment were investigated. The validity of the proposed guidelines by centrifuge test was compared with the observed performance by lateral movement index, F(Japan Highway Public Corporation) and modified I index(Korea Highway Corporation). Based on the results obtained, the critical values of F and modified I, as a practical guidelines, are proposed to 0.03 and 2.0, respectively.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.88-92
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• 2004

The paper decribes a procedure for the evaluation of the effect of seepage force on stability of slopes. The stability of an embankment impounding a water reservoir is highly depend upon the location of seepage line with the embankment. To evaluate the accurate safety factor of an embankment, it is important to illustrate the seepage phenomenon. Of particular interest is the stability following a rapid change of reservoir level. Seepage forces in embankments are easily determined interest is the stability following a rapid change of resrvoir level. Seepage forces in embankments are easily detemined if frictional forces are expressed in relation to hydraulic gradient I. If a piezometer is inserted into a body of embankment, the level to which fee water rises is a measure of the energy at that point.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.313-329
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• 2013

Vetiver grass (Vetiveria zizanioides) is being effectively used in many countries to protect embankment and slopes for their characteristics of having long and strong roots. In this paper, in-situ shear tests of the ground with the vetiver roots have been conducted to investigate the stabilization properties corresponding to the embankment slopes. Numerical analyses have also been performed with the finite element method using elastoplastic subloading $t_{ij}$ model, which can simulate typical soil behavior. It is revealed from field tests that the shear strength of vetiver rooted soil matrix is higher than that of the unreinforced soil. The reinforced soil with vetiver root also shows ductile behavior. The numerical analyses capture well the results of the in-situ shear tests. Effectiveness of vetiver root in geotechnical structures-strip foundation and embankment slope has been evaluated by finite element analyses. It is found that the reinforcement with vetiver root enhances the bearing capacities of the grounds and stabilizes the embankment slopes.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.102-108
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• 2010

The internal structure of a river embankment must be delineated as part of investigations to evaluate its safety. Geophysical methods can be most effective means for that purpose, if they are used together with geotechnical methods such as the cone penetration test (CPT) and drilling. Since the dyke body and subsoil in general consist of material with a wide range of grain size, the properties and stratification of the soil must be accurately estimated to predict the mechanical stability and water infiltration in the river embankment. The strength and water content of the levee soil are also parameters required for such prediction. These parameters are usually estimated from CPT data, drilled core samples and laboratory tests. In this study we attempt to utilise geophysical data to estimate these parameters more effectively for very long river embankments. S-wave velocity and resistivity of the levee soils obtained with geophysical surveys are used to classify the soils. The classification is based on a physical soil model, called the unconsolidated sand model. Using this model, a soil profile along the river embankment is constructed from S-wave velocity and resistivity profiles. The soil profile thus obtained has been verified by geotechnical logs, which proves its usefulness for investigation of a river embankment.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.309-318
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• 2001

A zero-dimensional simple model is presented to predict the currents in the opening channel of tide embankment and the sea-level response of the interior basin to ocean sea level. In general, a tidal embayment has wide tidal flats so that the effect of tidal flats has been taken into account by formulating the volute variation vs. depth. The model has been verified through the comparison with the 2-dimensional depth-integrated model which can resolve the small area by using the multigrid method. As the results applied to the storage of dredged material of Incheon North Harbour, the results indicate that both models adequately describe the sea-level and current fluctuations in the storage.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.17 no.7
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• pp.5-13
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• 2016

This research is focused on the seepage behavior of embankment which had the weak zone with big permeability. The distributed TDR (Time Domain Reflectometer) and point sensors such as settlement gauge, pore water pressuremeter, vertical total stressmeter, and FDR (Frequency Domain Reflectometer) sensor were used to measure the seepage characteristics and embankment behavior. Also, the measured data were compared to the data of 2-D and 3-D numerical analysis. The dimension of model embankment was 7 m length, 5 m width and 1.5 m height, which is composed of fine-grained sands and the water level of embankment was 1.3 m height. The seepage behavior of measuring and numerical analysis were very similar, it means that the proper sensing system can monitor the real-time safety of embankment. The result by 2-D and 3-D numerical analysis showed similar saturation processing, however in case of weak zone, the phreatic lines of 2-D showed faster movement than that of 3-D analysis, and finally they converged.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.61 no.6
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• pp.775-784
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• 2017

This study is devoted to developing many new substructure models for ballasted railway track by using the pyramid model philosophy. As the effect of railway embankment has been less considered in the previous studies in the field of vehicle/track interaction, so the present study develops the pyramid models in the presence of railway embankment and implements them in vehicle/track interaction dynamic analyses. Considering a moving car body as multi bodies with 10 degrees of freedom and the ballasted track including rail, sleeper, ballast, subgrade and embankment, two categories of numerical analyses are performed by considering the new substructure systems including type A (initiation of stress overlap areas in adjacent sleepers from the ballast layer) or type B (initiation of stress overlap areas in adjacent sleepers from the subgrade layer). A comprehensive sensitivity analyses are performed on effective parameters such as ballast height, sleepers spacing and sleeper width. The results indicate that the stiffness of subgrade, embankment and foundation increased by increasing the ballast height. Also, by increasing the ballast height, rail and ballast vertical displacement decreased.