• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.129-141
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• 2021

The vacuum preloading method has been used in many countries for soil improvement and land reclamation. However, the treatment time is long and the improvement effect is poor for the straight-line vacuum preloading method. To alleviate such problems, a novel combined air booster and straight-line vacuum preloading method for shallow ground treatment is proposed in this study. Two types of traditional vacuum preloading and combined air booster and straight-line vacuum preloading tests were conducted and monitored in the field. In both tests, the depth of prefabricated vertical drains (PVDs) is 4.5m, the distance between PVDs is 0.8m, and the vacuum preloading time is 60 days. The prominent difference between the two methods is when the preloading time is 45 days, the injection pressure of 250 kPa is adopted for combined air booster and straight-line vacuum preloading test to inject air into the ground. Based on the monitoring data, this paper systematically studied the mechanical parameters, hydraulic conductivity, pore water pressure, settlement and subsoil bearing capacity, as determined by the vane shear strength, to demonstrate that the air-pressurizing system can improve the consolidation. The consolidation time decreased by 15 days, the pore water pressure decreased to 60.49%, and the settlement and vane shear strengths increased by 45.31% and 6.29%, respectively, at the surface. These results demonstrate the validity of the combined air booster and straight-line vacuum preloading method. Compared with the traditional vacuum preloading, the combined air booster and straight-line vacuum preloading method has better reinforcement effect. In addition, an estimation method for evaluating the average degree of consolidation and an empirical formula for evaluating the subsoil bearing capacity are proposed to assist in engineering decision making.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.377-389
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• 2014

The vacuum consolidation method which was proposed by Kjellman in 1952 has been studied extensively and used successfully since early 1980 throughout the world, especially in East and Southeast Asia. Despite the increased successful use, different opinions still exist, especially in connection to distribution of vacuum with depth and time in vertical drains and in soil during preloading of soft ground. Porewater pressure measurements from actual cases of field vacuum and vacuum-fill preloading as well as laboratory studies have been examined. It is concluded that (a) a vacuum magnitude equal to that in the drainage blanket remains constant with depth and time within the vertical drains, (b) as expected, vacuum does not develop at the same rate within the soil at different depths; however, under ideal conditions vacuum is expected to become constant with depth in soil after the end of primary consolidation, and (c) there exists a possibility of internal leakage in vacuum intensity at some sublayers of a soft clay and silt deposit. A case history of vacuum loading with sufficient subsurface information is analyzed using the ILLICON procedure.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 1997.10a
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• pp.97-110
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• 1997

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.7 no.5
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• pp.525-537
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• 2014

The typical design of ground improvement with prefabricated vertical drains (PVD) and surcharge preloading involves a series of deterministic analyses using averaged or mean soil properties for the various combination of the PVD spacing and surcharge preloading height that would meet the criteria for minimum consolidation time and required degree of consolidation. The optimum design combination is then selected in which the total cost of ground improvement is a minimum. Considering the variability and uncertainties of the soil consolidation parameters, as well as considering the effects of soil disturbance (smear zone) and drain resistance in the analysis, this study presents a stochastic cost optimization of ground improvement with PVD and surcharge preloading. Direct Monte Carlo (MC) simulation and importance sampling (IS) technique is used in the stochastic analysis by limiting the sampled random soil parameters within the range from a minimum to maximum value while considering their statistical distribution. The method has been verified in a case study of PVD improved ground with preloading, in which average results of the stochastic analysis showed a good agreement with field monitoring data.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2005.03a
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• pp.1086-1093
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• 2005

In soft ground, consolidation settlement is mainly consider. The primary consolidation settlement which is the time when the excess pore water pressure is completely dispersed and the secondary consolidation settlement which follows. Recently as the depth of consolidation layer increases the consideration of not only the primary consolidation settlement but also of the secondary consolidation settlement becomes a very important element. But up to the present there were only a few in-depth study of the secondary consolidation settlement performed. At present there are a lot of methods available when it comes to the improvement of soft soil. In this study, Preloading Method which is the most commonly used soft soil improvement method locally was used in order to investigate the method for the reduction of secondary consolidation settlement. The objective of this study is to determine the amount of preloading required to reduce secondary consolidation settlement and to determine whether secondary consolidation settlement using standard consolidation test.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.6 no.5
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• pp.419-436
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• 2014

Soil improvement by preloading with PVD in combination with vacuum is helpful when a considerable load is required to meet the desired rate of settlement in a relative short time. To facilitate the vacuum propagation, vertical drains are usually employed in conjunction. This ground improvement method is more and more applied in the Mekong delta of Vietnam to meet the needs of fast infrastructure development. This paper reports on a pilot test that was carried out to investigate the effect of ground improvement by vacuum and PVD on the rate of consolidation at the site of Saigon International Terminals Vietnam (SITV) in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, Viet Nam. Three main aspects of the test will be presented, and namely, instrumentation and field monitoring program, calculation of consolidation settlement and back-analysis of soil properties to see the difference before and after ground improvement.

• Geotechnical Engineering
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.5-12
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• 1997

Predictions of settlements under preloading for the improvement of soft soil is a very important element of construction management. Due to the non uniformity, difficulty of estimating resonable soil properties, predictions of settlements and settlement velocities at the design stage seldom agree with the actual future settlements. To overcome this problem, the prediction methods based on the settlement observation of initial preloading stage such as hyperbolic method and Asaoka method have been employed frequently. However the estimating method for the reliability of these predictions at the time of prediction has not been suggested. In this study, comparisons of predicted settlements by hyperbolic met hed and observed settlements are explored through case studies. And a stratagem of estimating reliability of settlement predictions by hyperbolic method is suggested as the result of investigation on the relationship between the initial observed time and error of settlement prediction by hyperbolic method.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.27-35
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• 2018

In the water-filling and preloading test, the sensing cables were installed on the surface of steel spiral case and in the surrounding concrete to monitor the strain distribution of several cross-sections by using Brillouin Optical Time Domain Analysis (BOTDA), a kind of distributed optical fiber sensing (DOFS) technology. The average hoop strain of the spiral case was about $330{\mu}{\varepsilon}$ and $590{\mu}{\varepsilon}$ when the water-filling pressure in the spiral case was 2.6 MPa and 4.1 MPa. The difference between the measured and the calculated strain was only about $50{\mu}{\varepsilon}$. It was the first time that the stress adjustment of the spiral case was monitored by the sensing cable when the pressure was increased to 1 MPa and the residual strain of $20{\mu}{\varepsilon}$ was obtained after preloading. Meanwhile, the shrinkage of $70{\sim}100{\mu}{\varepsilon}$ of the surrounding concrete was effectively monitored during the depressurization. It is estimated that the width of the gap between the steel spiral case and the surrounding concrete was 0.51 ~ 0.75 mm. BOTDA based distributed optical fiber sensing technology can obtain continuous strain of the structure and it is more reliable than traditional point sensor. The strain distribution obtained by BOTDA provides strong support for the design and optimization of the spiral case structure.

• Geotechnical Engineering
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.79-88
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• 1996

In this study, prediction of soil behavior under vacuum preloading with vertical drain is explored on the basis of numerical models and toe results were compared with field measurements. Reasonable prediction of the time rate of settlements and pore pressure dissipation under vacuum preloading is the maj or concern. The conventional method for vatsuum preloading is based on modeling vacuum preloading as surcharge loading for the consolidation analysis. However, this modeling may violate the real behavior of soils under vacuum loading since the total stress in the analysis varies due to the modeled surcharge loading whereas in'.situ total stress of soils under vacuum loading is constant. In this study a new method is suggested. Instead of modeling vacuum loading as surcharge loading, negative hydraulic head is applied at the surface drain boundary to simulate the vacuum preloading. Comparisons of predictions and field measurements of soil behavior under vatsuum preloading are presented and the usefulness of the new modeling technique is demonstrated.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.17 no.7
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• pp.486-490
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• 2008

This study demonstrates that preloading via the elastostatic compression imposed on amorphous alloys at room temperature induces homogeneous plastic strain associated with structural disordering. This structural disordering causes disorder, which at room temperature creates excess free volume and in turn enhances the plasticity. In this study, we investigated the effects of various parameters, such as stress level, flow rate and preloading time, on the degree of the structural disordering at room temperature. On the basis of the present findings, we proposed a method of enhancing the plasticity of amorphous alloys.