• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2004.03b
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• pp.643-650
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• 2004

In general, slope failures are occurred by the interaction among various factors(slope shape, hydraulic condition, and geologic condition, etc.). In the area where has a heavy rainfall, a great portion of slope failures are caused by seepage increasement with suitable failure condition. Many studies have been performed to find the cause of large-scale failures. In this study, three Cut-Slope failures caused by typhoon 'MAEMI' were investigated to find out factors causing large-scale slope failures. It was confirmed in this research that major reason of slope failures was the weak layer working along with other unstable factor. The large-scaled investigation concerning Cut-Slope will be needed to find out the Weak Layer.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.13-19
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• 2012

Due to recent climate change, big typhoon and heavy rainfall happen frequently not only in Korea but also all over the world. It leads to collapse of levee by extraordinary flood. It lead to collapse of levees by extraordinary flood. These natural disasters give the life and property damages in near region. In this study, it was performed that a stability in levee using seepage analysis. It has been evaluated hydraulic gradient of exit zone according to variations in levee crest width, gradient. As a result, it showed that hydraulic gradient of exit zone was decreased due to increase of levee crest width and gradient, and it was evaluated that vertical hydraulic gradient was decreased than that of the horizontal hydraulic gradient.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.135-147
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• 2013

Most of slope failures are triggered by heavy rainfall during rainy season. If the rain keeps on for the season, the water content of the ground increases and its matric suction decrease, and then the safety factor of soil slope gets lower. The change of water table level for soil slope stability dose not describe the behavior of the soil slope in real situation, hence it may be necessary to modify the design standard for slope stability in association with rain infiltration. For correct design, economical construction, and maintenance of a soil slope, unsaturated flow analysis is needed for estimation of slope instability regarding water infiltration and soil behavior on unsaturated soil slopes. The entire soil slope cannot be saturated by prolonged rainfall and wetting band depth (saturated zone) just deepens from slope surface, hence the cause of the shallow surface slide is the wetting band depth depending on rainfall duration and intensity. Therefore, the paper presents the differences between theoretical equation and numerical analysis for wetting band depth on soil surface and its safety factor, and compares the slope stability obtained from unsaturated flow analysis with that obtained from conventional slope stability analysis.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.19-24
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• 2010

Generally, slope behavior is analyzed by 2-dimensional creep model. Creep behavior shows the deformation variation as time goes by without stress increment. Convention 2-dimensional creep analysis does not have the term of stress variation, it means creep analysis could not figure out the relationship of shear strength variation according to the stress variation and displacement. The slope weight and shear strength is directly related and interlocked to the safety variation and displacement of slope, therefore, this phenomenon could be treated and analyzed as combining the hysteresis and creep, the iteration of this process will result in the slope safety. Furthermore, the combined analysis will be the slope analysis considering shear stress, displacement and shear strength with time variation. In real case, because the variation of shear stress and strength happen at the same time, they should be changed into safety factor which is function of them. This paper shows the 3-dimensional variation of unit weight of soil with hybrid analysis considering creep and hysteresis on the seepage and drainage of rainfall, futhermore variations of shear stress and strength which make the safety factor change.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.796-800
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• 2009

토목구조물 및 사면의 붕괴는 집중호우가 내리는 경우 많이 발생하고 있으며, 특히 사면에서는 붕괴까지의 변형이 급속히 진행되어 이를 사전에 예방하기는 매우 어려운 현실이다. 침투 및 배수과정에서의 사면 붕괴는 강우침투로 인한 지반의 물리적 특성변화가 직접적으로 사면의 안전계수 변화에 영향을 주는 것으로 판단되며, 이때 발생하는 물리적 특성변화로는 침투시 사면 내 지반의 단위 중량은 증가하여 전단응력의 증가 및 전단강도 감소현상이 발생하며, 이와 반대로 사면 내 배수로 인하여 전단응력의 감소 및 전단강도의 증가현상이 발생한다. 따라서 본 연구에서는 강우침투로 발생하는 지반의 포화도 변화를 지반 내 투수계수의 함수로 설명하여 강우로 인한 지반의 침투 및 배수과정을 규명하고자 한다. 일반적으로 지반 내 지하수의 침투과정은 라플라스 공식을 적용한다. 그러나 라플라스 공식은 정상 상태(Steady State)일 경우에만 사용할 수 있고, 강우 등으로 인한 지하수의 수두 변화가 발생한 비정상 상태(Unsteady State)의 경우에는 부적합하므로 사면과 옹벽 등의 토질구조물에서는 안전성 변화를 계산할 수 없다. 이를 위해 사면 내 지반의 침투 및 배수과정을 투수계수의 함수로 나타내어, 강우의 침투과정을 Fourier Series, 변수분리법 및 섭동함수를 사용하여 식으로 유도함으로서 강우에 의한 지반의 침투 및 배수과정에 따른 사면 내 지하수의 분포를 예측한다. 침투과정 해석을 위하여 지표에서 포화대까지의 깊이 10m의 모델사면 및 지표부터 포화대까지의 포화도는 직선으로 비례한다는 가정을 적용한다. 먼저 푸리에 급수를 이용, 시간에 따른 온도를 열전달에 관하여 편미분하여 발생하는 열확산계수를 투수계수로 변환함에 따라 지하수의 시간과 수직방향거리에 대한 지반의 포화도를 산정한다. 변수분리법은 산정된 포화도에 지반의 초기조건과 경계조건를 고려하기 위해 적용하며, 변수분리법에 의해 산정된 지하수 분포를 섭동함수법으로 과도 및 정상상태로 분류한다. 본 연구의 수행으로 인해 얻어진 결과를 요약하면 다음과 같다. 첫째, Fourier Series와 변수분리법, 섭동함수를 이용하여 강우에 의한 지반의 포화도 변화를 수식적으로 나타낼 수 있으며 둘째, 지반에서의 강우침투과정을 식으로 표현함으로서, 깊이별 시간에 따른 포화도의 영역이 상부로부터 하부로 전이되는 과정을 알 수 있다. 셋째, 푸리에 급수를 이용한 지반의 침투계산으로 강우로 인한 지반의 포화영역 및 불포화영역을 명확히 구분할 수 있으며, 각 깊이별 포화도를 계산하여 각 구간에서 불포화구간의 전단강도에 대한 보다 정확한 계산이 가능하리라 판단된다.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.283-291
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• 2018

Cracks in soil provide significant preferential pathways for contaminant transport and rainfall infiltration. Water exchange between the soil matrix and crack is crucial to characterize the preferential flow, which is often quantitatively described by a water exchange ratio. The water exchange ratio is defined as the amount of water flowing from the crack into the clay matrix per unit time. Most of the previous studies on the water exchange ratio mainly focused on cracked sandy soils. The water exchange between cracks and clay matrix were rarely studied mainly due to two reasons: (1) Cracks open upon drying and close upon wetting. The deformable cracks lead to a dynamic change in the water exchange ratio. (2) The aperture of desiccation crack in clay is narrow (generally 0.5 mm to 5 mm) which is difficult to model in experiments. This study will investigate the water exchange between a deformable crack and the clay matrix using a newly developed experimental apparatus. An artificial crack with small aperture was first fabricated in clay without disturbing the clay matrix. Water content sensors and suction sensors were instrumented at different places of the cracked clay to monitor the water content and suction changes. Results showed that the water exchange ratio was relatively large at the initial stage and decreased with the increasing water content in clay matrix. The water exchange ratio increased with increasing crack apertures and approached the largest value when the clay was compacted at the water content to the optimal water content. The effective hydraulic conductivity of the crack-clay matrix interface was about one order of magnitude larger than that of saturated soil matrix.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.185-196
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• 2010

Clay veins that occurred in a slope by hydrothermal alteration, can significantly affect its slope stability. The effect of clay veins on the slope stability was investigated by numerical modeling study. Various parameters such as cohesion, internal friction angle, orientation, groundwater level, rainfall intensity and duration, have been modelled. As shear strength increased, factor of safety increased. As groundwater level developed, factor of safety decreased. For the case of slip surface developed on interface, factor of safety was lower than that for case of slip surface developed on either weathered soil or clay vein. The effect of various soil types of the slope stability was also investigated by simulating seepage through the slopes with various soils. The groundwater level significantly increased on the slopes with silty and generic soils. For the slope with sandy soil, almost no change in groundwater level was observed due to rapid drainage.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2010.09c
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• pp.3-10
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• 2010

Case study was carried out on the interpretation of the mechanical behavior of a severely damaged reinforced earth wall comprising geotextile with the concrete panel facing. In this part I, the outline of the damaged reinforced earth wall is in detail described. The background and cause of the damage are discussed based on the results of site investigation. The engineering properties of the fill were examined by performing various in-situ and laboratory tests, including the surface wave survey (SWS), PS-logging, RI-logging, soaking test, the direct shear box (DSB) test, bender element (BE) test, etc. The background as well as the cause for the damage of the wall may be described such that i) a considerable amount of settlement took place over a 3m thick weak soil layer in the lower part of the reinforced earth due to seepage of rainfall water, ii) the weight of the upper fill was partially supported by the geo-textile hooked on the concrete panels (n.b., named conveniently "hammock state" in this paper), and iii) the concrete panels to form the hammock were severely damaged by the unexpectedly large downwards compression force triggered by the tension force of the geotextile. The numerical simulation for the hammock state of the wall, together with counter-measures to re- stabilize the wall is subsequently described in Part II.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.41-49
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• 2014

Intensive rainfall causes frequent slope failures at the shallow depths of slopes. Because soil layers at shallow depths of slopes usually become dense, and its permeability and soil strength vary according to depth, forensic studies and stability analyses of shallow slope failure need to consider the depth-variant soil properties. In this study, the effect of depth-variant soil properties on surface failure of slopes during rain infiltration is investigated using numerical analysis. Three different cases considering depth-variant soil properties were conducted and the results were compared. For the analysis, undisturbed soils at three different depths were sampled at actual slope failure sites and the properties including strength and permeability characteristics at each depth were obtained. Stability analysis and seepage analysis were conducted using actual rainfall records. The comparison of the results shows that analysis could lead to an erroneous conclusion according to the way of considering depth-variant soil properties. The case in which depth-variant soil properties were considered predicted similar failure times and failure shapes with the actual failure. Therefore it is recommended that the depth-variant soil properties should be considered for the analysis of shallow slope failure during rain infiltration.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.5-21
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• 2014

It has been pointed out that the collapses of unsaturated road embankments caused by earthquake are attributed to high water content caused by the seepage of the underground water and/or the rainfall infiltration. Hence, it is important to study influences of water content on the dynamic stability and deformation mode of unsaturated road embankments for development of a proper design scheme including an effective reinforcement to prevent severe damage. This study demonstrates dynamic centrifugal model tests with different water contents to investigate the effect of water content on deformation and failure behaviors of unsaturated road embankments. Based on the measurement of displacement, the pore water pressure and the acceleration during dynamic loading, dynamic behavior of the unsaturated road embankments with about optimum water content and the higher water content than the optimum one have been examined. In addition, an image analysis has revealed the displacement field and the distributions of strains in the road embankment, by which deformation mode of the road embankment with higher water content has been clarified. It has been confirmed that in the case of higher water content the settlement of the crown is large mainly owing to the volume compression underneath the crown, while the small confining pressure at the toe and near the slope surface induces large shear deformation with volume expansion.