• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.265-281
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• 2022

A set of slurry shield test system capable of cutter cutting and slurry automatic circulation is used to investigate the deformation characteristics, the evolution characteristics of support resistance and the distribution and evolution process of earth pressure during excavating and collapsing of slurry shield tunneling in circular-gravel layer. The influence of cover-span ratio on surface subsidence, support resistance and failure mode of excavation face is also discussed. Three-dimensional numerical calculations are performed to verify the reliability of the test results. The results show that, with the decrease of the supporting force of the excavation face, the surface subsidence goes through four stages: insensitivity, slow growth, rapid growth and stability. The influence of shield excavation on the axial earth pressure of the front soil is greater than that of the vertical earth pressure. When the support resistance of the excavation face decreases to the critical value, the soil in front of the excavation face collapses. The shape of the collapse is similar to that of a bucket. The ultimate support resistance increase with the increase of the cover-span ratio, however, the angle between the bottom of the collapsed body and the direction of the tunnel excavation axis when the excavation face is damaged increase first and then becomes stable. The surface settlement value and the range of settlement trough decrease with the increase of cover-span ratio. The numerical results are basically consistent with the model test results.

• Computational Structural Engineering
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.199-207
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• 1996

In the past decade soft clay shield tunneling technology have been improved to permit continuous support to the face of a tunnel. These advanced shield can be operated such that an initial heaving is created, this helps to decrease the inward soil movement into the tail void. In this paper, the measurement of slurry shield and EPB shield were used and two dimensional elasto-plastic programs EPSHILD developed for shield tunnel analysis were approved. The excavation steps corresponding with construction stages were settled and heaving load, load factors were considered. This study is based on the instantaneous settlement which is occured in the process of shield construction but not the secondary settlement by consolidation.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.209-222
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• 2024

The Earth Pressure Balance (EPB) shield Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) is widely used for underground tunnel construction for its advantages, such as eliminating the need for additional facilities compared to the slurry shield TBM, which requires Slurry Treatment Plant (STP). During EPB shield TBM excavation, a soil conditioning technique is employed to enhance the physical properties of the excavated soil by injecting additives, thus broadening the range of applicable ground conditions to EPB shield TBMs. This study explored the use of xanthan gum, a type of biopolymer, as an alternative to the commonly used polymer additive. Biopolymers, derived from biological sources, are fully biodegradable. In contrast to traditional polymers such as polyacrylic acid, which contain environmentally harmful components, xanthan gum is gaining attention as an eco-friendly material due to its minimal toxicity and environmental impact. Test conditions with similar workability were established through slump tests, and the rheological characteristics were assessed using a laboratory pressurized vane shear test apparatus. The experiments demonstrated that, despite exhibiting similar workability, the peak strength in the flow curve decreased with increasing the content of xanthan gum. Consequently, a correlation between the xanthan gum content and peak strength was established. Replacing the traditional polymers with xanthan gum could enable stable EPB shield TBM operation by reducing equipment load, in addition to offering environmental benefits.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.637-658
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• 2022

TBM tunnel is simple with the iterative process of excavating the ground, building a segment ring-build, and backfilling. Drill & Blast, a conventional tunnel construction method, is more complicated than the TBM tunnel and has some restrictions because it repeats the inspection, drilling, charging, blasting, ventilation, muck treatment, and installation of support materials. However, the preparation work for excavation requires time and cost based on a very detailed plan compared to Drill & Blasting, which reinforces the ground and forms a tunnel after the formation of tunnel portal. This is because the TBM equipment for excavating the target ground determines the success or failure of the construction. If the TBM, an expensive order-made equipment, is incorrectly configured at the assembly stage, it becomes difficult to excavate from the initial stage as well as the main excavation stage. When the assembled shield TBM equipment is dismantled again, and a situation of re-assembly occurs, it is difficult throughout the construction period due to economic loss as well as time. Therefore, in this study, the layout and plan of the site and the assembly process for each major part of the TBM equipment were reviewed for the assembly of slurry shield TBM to construct the largest diameter road tunnel in domestic passing through the Han River and minimized interference with other processes and the efficiency of cutter head assembly and transport were analyzed and improved to suit the site conditions.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.463-473
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• 2017

Bentonite swells when it comes into contact with water and makes it a viscous fluid. Thus it is widely used in civil engineering works for waterproofing. Utilizing the properties of bentonite, the slurry shield TBM supports excavated face with pressurized slurry as well as transporting excavated muck. When bentonite is in contact with seawater, due to the change of double layer thickness, its expandability and viscosity are lowered. This may cause problems for excavation stability and muck discharge due to the increase of sea water inflow when Slurry TBM is used under sea water conditions. In this study, the change of slurry condition caused by the inflow of sea water during tunnel excavation with Slurry TBM was investigated and a slurry management guideline was proposed. For this purpose, a laboratory test was carried out based on the slurry management criterions applied in the field, and a method applicable to the field where sea water is affected has been proposed.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.243-254
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• 2024

Currently, due to industrial development in domestic regions, buildings are saturated not only in major city centers but also in surrounding urban areas. Accordingly, people's attention has focused on underground spaces, and tunnels are being widely used, especially in urban development. Research on tunnels and tunnel excavation methods is actively underway. However, there is a lack of research on the wear and tear problems of sludge discharge pipes when using a slurry shield TBM. Therefore, in this paper, the L-shaped bend pipe used in the existing sludge discharge pipe was transformed into a T-shaped bend pipe to move sludge. As a result, it was confirmed that compared to the L-shaped bend pipe, the impact of the T-shaped bend pipe on the bend pipe when discharging sludge was reduced. Based on these results, it is expected that wear of the sludge discharge pipe can be minimized by using a T-shaped bend pipe when using slurry shield TBM equipment. This is expected to ultimately lead to economic benefits, such as reducing costs due to replacement of curved pipes or additional welding during tunnel construction.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.375-393
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• 2022

This study was deal with blow-out and buoyancy stability evaluation method for slurry shield TBM. When applying a slurry shield TBM for the construction of a shallow tunnel under river or sea, the stability of slurry blow-out and segment lining buoyancy should be evaluated. However, there is a problem in that the currently applied theoretical formula is somewhat complicated, making it inconvenient to calculate in practice. In this study, some simple charts were proposed to easily evaluate the stability of slurry blow-out and segment lining buoyancy. In addition, the buoyancy safety factor of segment lining using the strength reduction method was evaluated and compared with the buoyancy safety factor based on the theoretical formula. The buoyancy safety factor by the theoretical formula was evaluated to be rather small, and it was confirmed that it was on the safe side. The simplified charts for the evaluation of slurry blow-out and buoyancy stability presented in this study are expected to be usefully utilized in the planning and design of undersea tunnels.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.599-615
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• 2022

In order to excavate underground tunnel most safely such as Han river, the slurry shield TBM method is applied to cope with face of high water pressure for many metro projects. In downtown subway project most of excavated soil is discharged externally whereas in road construction excavated soil is used as filling materials so it becomes important factor for success of the project. After excavated soil, weathered rock and soft rock are discharged with bentonite through discharge pipe to slurry treatment plant then those soils are separated in separation plant according to those size. Fine grained soil has been discarded together with filter cake but it is not toxic and can be mixed with coarse aggregate in proper ratio so this study is performed to find use of qualified filling material to meet quality standard. Therefore, in this study, legal standards and quality standards for the utilization of excavated soil of the slurry shield TBM method were examined and test was conducted to derive recycling way for filter cake and aggregate. And a plan for using it as a filling material for road construction was derived. Because bentonite is a clay composed of montmorillonite, and the excavated soil in the tunnel is also non-toxic, disposal of this material can waste social cost so it is expected to be helpful in the underground space development project that carries out the TBM project by recycling it as a valuable resource.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.397-407
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• 2015

Estimation of shield TBM tunnelling-induced volume loss is of great importance for ground settlement control. This study proposed a simple method for evaluation of volume loss during TBM tunnlling, which is able to take into account of shield machine configurations and main driving data in calculation. The method was applied to analyze the tunnelling cases with earth pressure balanced and slurry pressure balanced shiled TBM, and mostly, reasonable agreements with monitoring results were found. Additional discussions were made for some disagreements.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.214-225
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• 2020

Uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) of rock is one of the important factors to determine the advance speed during shield TBM tunnel excavation. UCS can be obtained through the Geotechnical Data Report (GDR), and it is difficult to measure UCS for all tunneling alignment. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to predict UCS by utilizing TBM machine driving data and machine learning technique. Several machine learning techniques were compared to predict UCS, and it was confirmed the stacking model has the most successful prediction performance. TBM machine data and UCS used in the analysis were obtained from the excavation of rock strata with slurry shield TBMs. The data were divided into 8:2 for training and test and pre-processed including feature selection, scaling, and outlier removal. After completing the hyper-parameter tuning, the stacking model was evaluated with the root-mean-square error (RMSE) and the determination coefficient (R²), and it was found to be 5.556 and 0.943, respectively. Based on the results, the sacking models are considered useful in predicting rock strength with TBM excavation data.