• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.637-644
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• 2022

Loess soils are unsaturated and widely distributed in the northwest zone in China. Many steep slope of unsaturated are observed are observed to be naturally stable. However, a low factor of safety (FoS) for these slopes would be computed from the slope stability analysis following local code practices. It seems that the analyzed results following the local code practices do not agree with the real condition as observed in the field. It is commonly known that soil suction plays an important role in slope stability due to a higher shear strength of the unsaturated soil as compared with that of the saturated soil. In this paper, it is observed that the computed FoS can also be affected by unsaturated unit weight of the soil. However, the effect of unsaturated unit weight of the soil on the slope stability is commonly ignored in engineering practice. Therefore, both the effects of shear strength and unit weight of the unsaturated soil on the computed FoS of unsaturated soil slope are investigated in this study. It is observed that the unsaturated unit weight of soil on the computed FoS increases with increase in slope angle. It is also observed that the effects of the unsaturated shear strength and unsaturated unit weight on the computed FoS are more significant than the effect of 3D analyses compared to the 2D analyses on the FoS.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.14-22
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• 2008

The forest soil sediment disasters occurred in Jinbu-myeon Pyeongchang county were investigated characteristics by the aerial photograph analysis. After digitizing from aerial photographs, forest soil sediment disaster sites were classified into 695 collapsed sites, 305 flowed sites and 199 sediment sites. DEM (Digital Elevation Model) were generated from 1 : 5,000 digital topographic map. Factors of geography, hydrology, biology, and geology were analyzed using DEM, geologic map, and forest stand map with aerial photographs by GIS spatial analysis technique. The forest soil sediment disasters were mainly occurred from southeastern slope to southwestern slope. In collapsed sit es, the average slope degree is $28.9^{\circ}$, the average flow length is 163.5m, the average area of drainage basin is 897$m^2$. In case of flowed sites, the average slope degree, flow length, the area of drainage basin and confluence order is $27.0^{\circ}$, 175m, 2,500$m^2$ and 1, respectively. In sediment sites, the average slope, flow length, the area of drainage basin and confluence order is $12.5^{\circ}$, 2,50m, 25,000$m^2$ and 4, respectively. Also the forest soil sediment disasters were occurred most of collapsed sites in the afforest land after felling and igneous rocks composed of granite.

• 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.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2003.03a
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• pp.123-130
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• 2003

The estimation of key soil properties and subsequent quantitative assessment of the associated uncertainties has always been an important issue in geotechnical engineering. It is well recognized that soil properties vary spatially as a result of depositional and post-depositional processes. The stochastic nature of spatially varying soil properties can be treated as a random field. A practical statistical approach that can be used to systematically model various sources of uncertainty is presented in the context of reliability analysis of slope stability Newly developed expressions for probabilistic characterization of soil properties incorporate sampling and measurement errors, as well as spatial variability and its reduced variance due to spatial averaging. Reliability analyses of the probability of slope failure using the different statistical representations of soil properties show that the incorporation of spatial correlation and conditional simulation leads to significantly lower probability of failure than obtained using simple random variable approach.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.315-328
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• 2019

This paper presents an investigation on bearing capacity, load-settlement behavior and safety factor of rock-soil slopes reinforced using geogrid-box method (GBM). To this end, small-scale laboratory studies were carried out to study the load-settlement response of a circular footing resting on unreinforced and reinforced rock-soil slopes. Several parameters including unit weight of rock-soil materials (loose- and dense-packing modes), slope height, location of footing relative to the slope crest, and geogrid tensile strength were studied. A series of finite element analysis were conducted using ABAQUS software to predict the bearing capacity behavior of slopes. Limit equilibrium and finite element analysis were also performed using commercially available software SLIDE and ABAQUS, respectively to calculate the safety factor. It was found that stabilization of rock-soil slopes using GBM significantly improves the bearing capacity and settlement behavior of slopes. It was established that, the displacement contours in the dense-packing mode distribute in a broader and deeper area as compared with the loose-packing mode, which results in higher ultimate bearing load. Moreover, it was found that in the loose-packing mode an increase in the vertical pressure load is accompanied with an increase in the soil settlement, while in the dense-packing mode the load-settlement curves show a pronounced peak. Comparison of bearing capacity ratios for the dense- and loose-packing modes demonstrated that the maximum benefit of GBM is achieved for rock-soil slopes in loose-packing mode. It was also found that by increasing the slope height, both the initial stiffness and the bearing load decreases. The results indicated a significant increase in the ultimate bearing load as the distance of the footing to the slope crest increases. For all the cases, a good agreement between the laboratory and numerical results was observed.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.449-456
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• 2018

In this study, a soil nail design method for a stability analysis of local instability with nail reinforced slope was proposed. The failure mechanism of a local instability of slope was studied and a theoretical equation to estimate the stability of slope was developed. Using the developed equation, the stability analysis was performed according to installation conditions of soil nail such as a slope inclination, a thickness of soil layer, a nail inclination, and a nail spacing. Considering those design factors, a sensitivity analysis for each influence factors was conducted. Analysis results showed that the safety factor of reinforced slope with nail was higher than the slope without nail. In addition, the safety factor of slope according to ground condition was increased in the order of dry, saturated, and seepage condition.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2006.03a
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• pp.720-723
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• 2006

This study performed slope stability analysis by changing analysis methods and shear strength with the slope stability analysis program. The conclusions of the study are as follows. 1) The safe factor of clayey soil applied with Bishop's simple method turned out to be similar to or slightly higher than those of other methods, for both dry and saturated conditions. 2) The safe factor of sandy soil applied with GLE method turned out to be slightly higher than those of other methods. But when applied with Bishop's simple method, it appeared to be slightly higher than those of other methods. 3) The safe factor of ordinary soil applied with GLE method showed the highest result. 4) Janbu method showed the lowest safe factor among all the methods for the above three types of soils.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.21-28
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• 2021

The factors of landslides depend on rainfall intensity, duration, and the characteristics of the soil slope. The conventional slope stability analysis has been carried out by assuming that the slope is saturated. But, a site slope consisting of unsaturated ground must be imitated and interpreted in order to explain a proper behavior of the slope due to rainfall. In this study, by using two major categories of soils in Korea, such as granite and gneiss weathered soils, landslide model test and numerical analysis have been compared with the difference of seepage and volumetric water content. In general, the permeability of gneiss weathered soil, which contains a lot of fines content, is slower than that of granite weathered soil. As a result, in extreme rainfall, numerical analysis can show results that can penetrate quickly, resulting in saturation or more dangerous collapse.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2019

Shallow failures occur frequently in both engineered and natural slopes in expansive soils. Rainfall infiltration is the most predominant triggering factor that contributes to slope failures in both expansive soils and clayey soils. However, slope failures in expansive soils have some distinct characteristics in comparison to slopes in conventional clayey soils. They typically undergo shallow failures with gentle sliding retrogression characteristics. The shallow sliding mass near the slope surface is typically in a state of unsaturated condition and will exhibit significant volume changes with increasing water content during rainfall periods. Many other properties or characteristics change such as the shear strength, matric suction including stress distribution change with respect to depth and time. All these parameters have a significant contribution to the expansive soil slopes instability and are difficult to take into consideration in slope stability analysis using traditional slope stability analysis methods based on principles of saturated soil mechanics. In this paper, commercial software VADOSE/W that can account for climatic factors is used to predict variation of matric suction with respect to time for an expansive soil cut slope in China, which is reported in the literature. The variation of factor of safety with respect to time for this slope is computed using SLOPE/W by taking account of shear strength reduction associated with loss of matric suction extending state-of-the art understanding of the mechanics of unsaturated soils.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.26 no.10
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• pp.5-14
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• 2010

The slope stability method using the soil stabilizer is a way to ensure that the slope stability from reinforcing method is environmentally friendly. However, the reinforcing method does not ensure slope stability for lack of research on the reinforcement effect of the mixture with soil. So the application of this method implies difficult technical issues. In this research, reinforcement effect is investigated according to the different ratio of mixture. And the optimum reinforcement depth is proposed according to the height of slope from numerical analysis. The results show that approximately the soil strength increases from two to three times. From numerical analysis, it is possible to estimate the optimum height according to the height of slope. It is anticipated that the use of soil stabilizer will increase the slope stability.