• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.327-338
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• 2004

The purpose of this research is to establish a concept of the factor of safety of tunnels which is a quantitative estimate of the stability of tunnels. Based on this concept, a numerical technique which calculates the factor of safety of tunnels was developed. To obtain the safety factor of a tunnel, the strength reduction technique in which a series of analyses are repeated with reduced ground strength until the tunnel collapses were employed. With this technique, the failure plane, as well as the factor of safety, can be obtained without prescribing the trial failure plane. Analyses were conducted with FLA $C^{2D}$(ver3.3), a geotechnical analysis program which is based on the finite difference method. From the result, the location of plastic zones, the maximum convergence and the maximum stress generated in the support system were also analyzed. The result shows that factors of safety are higher for the 1st and 2nd rock classes, and lower for the lower rock classes. Furthermore, factor of safety is higher when $K_{0}$ =0.5 compared to at in case of $K_{0}$ =2.0. Through this research, it is found that the factor of safety defined in this research can be used as a good quantitative index representing the stability of tunnels. Also, close examination of the results can help adjustment of the quantity and location of additional supports.s.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Geophysical Society
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.143-151
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• 2002

Bulku temple in the city of Kyungju, Korea, built in 791 and reconstructed in the 20th century, is the home of seven national treasures including two three-story stone pagodas, Dabotap (height 10.4m, width 7.4m, weight 123.2ton) and Seokgatap (height 10.8m, width 4.4m, weight 82.3 ton). An earlier archaeological investigation shows that stone pagodas have experienced severe weathering process which will threaten their stability. At the base part of Dabotap, an offset of the stone alignment is also observed. For the purpose of the structural safety diagnosis of two pagodas, we introduce the nondestructive geophysical methods. Site characteristics around the pagodas are determined by the measurement of multiple properties such as seismic velocity, resistivity, image of GPR(ground-penetrating radar). Near the pagodas, the occurrence of high resistivity (up to 2200 Ωm) is obvious whereas their outskirts have as low as 200 Ωm. For the velocity of the P wave, the site of Dabotap has the range of 500~800 m/s which is higher than counterpart of Seokgatap with the velocity of 300~500m/s, indicating the solider stability of Dabotap site. Consequently, in addition to GPR images, the foundation boundaries beneath each stone pagodas are revealed. The Dabotap site is in the form of an octagon having 6-m-long side with the depth of ~4m, whereas the Seokgatap site the 9m × 10m rectangle with the depth of 3m. These subsurface structures appear to reflect the original foundations constructed against the stone load of ~8 ton/㎡. At the subsurface beneath the northeast of each pagoda, low seismic velocity as well as low resistivity is prominent. It is interpreted to represent the weak underground condition.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.373-387
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• 2009

Considering the current construction technology and research status of deep repository tunnels for radioactive waste disposal, it is inevitable to use cementitious materials in spite of serious concern about their long-term environmental stability. Thus, it is an emerging task to develop low pH cementitious materials. This study reviews the state of the technology on low pH cements developed in Sweden, Switzerland, France, and Japan as well as in Finland which is constructing a real deep repository site for high-level radioactive waste disposal. Considering the physical and chemical stability of bentonite which acts as a buffer material, a low pH cement limits to $pH{\leq}11$ and pozzolan-type admixtures are used to lower the pH of cement. To attain this pH requirement, silica fume, which is one of the most promising admixtures, should occupy at least 40 wt% of total dry materials in cement and the Ca/Si ratio should be maintained below 0.8 in cement. Additionally, selective super-plasticizer needs to be used because a high amount of water is demanded from the use of a large amount of silica fume.

• Journal of Korean Society of Disaster and Security
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2017

Recently, increasing cases of ground subsidence in the urban area has become social issue, and related bill has been passed. Ground subsidence occurs through complex combination of various factors, and numerical analysis of this problem is limited thereby. This is why verification of ground subsidence mechanism has been conducted through physical modelling. Previous researches has been focused on modelling ground subsidence caused by utility pipe defects, and there has been insufficient physical modelling study on ground subsidence caused by various reasons such as groundwater flow and excavation activity. Also, most previous physical modelling studies were performed in 1g condition, which cannot take the in-situ stress condition into the evaluation of the ground subsidence mechanism. Therefore, in this study, physical modelling techniques to simulate various conditions is discussed by studying the previous researches on the ground subsidence mechanism through physical modelling. Also, centrifuge modelling test is suggested in this study as the technique to perform more reliable evaluation of ground subsidence mechanism. Lastly, this study suggests to apply the techniques used in the evaluation of ground subsidence mechanism into Ground Stability Assessment.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.635-650
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• 2018

Many people have been recognized that the Korean Peninsula is no longer safe area from the earthquake by the recent earthquakes occurred in the country. The earthquakes that occurred at Pohang and Gyeongju appeared differently from them considered in the seismic design and researches on the seismic design method have been also conducted by many researchers. Studies on seismic loads are mainly focused on existing superstructures, and research involving them has been actively carried out in reality. However, paper regarding structural stability of reinforcement from seismic load such as soil-nails, rock-bolts, ground anchors which were constructed to ensure stability of serviced structure have been published rarely. In this study, ground anchor been effected by static load and seismic load which is settled in the weathered rock is analyzed. Results for static load are obtained from field test and seismic load is from numerical analysis. In this study, the behavioral characteristics of the ground anchor were analyzed by numerical analysis in case of seismic loading based on the result of the in-situ tensile test of the ground anchor settled weathered rock. As a result, settlement of concrete block due to application of tension force for ground anchor occurred as well as following loss of axial force for ground anchor. Also, as bond length and period of seismic load are longer, increasement of displacement is greater.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.509-518
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• 2020

This study constructed a new simulation platform, including mesh generation process, numerical simulation, and post-processing for results analysis based on exploration data to perform real-scale numerical analysis considering the actual geological structure efficiently. To build the simulation platform, we applied for open-source programs. The source code is open to be available for code modification according to the researcher's needs and compatibility with various numerical simulation programs. First, a three-dimensional model(3D) is acquired based on the exploration data obtained using a drone. Then, the domain's mesh density was adjusted to an interpretable level using Blender, the free and open-source 3D creation suite. The next step is to create a 3D numerical model by creating a tetrahedral volume mesh inside the domain using Gmsh, a finite element mesh generation program. To use the mesh information obtained through Gmsh in a numerical simulation program, a converting process to conform to the program's mesh creation protocol is required. We applied a Python code for the procedure. After we completed the stability analysis, we have created various visualization of the study using ParaView, another open-source visualization and data analysis program. We successfully performed a preliminary stability analysis on the full-scale Dokdo model based on drone-acquired data to confirm the usefulness of the proposed platform. The proposed simulation platform in this study can be of various analysis processes in future research.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.623-646
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• 2021

As the demand for electric power increases with acceleration of electrification at home and abroad, the needs for coal-fired electrical power plant are accordingly increased. However, these coal-fired electrical power plants induce also many environmental problems such as increase of air pollutants, increase of possibility of land contamination by reclamation of coal ash, even though these power plants have a good economical efficiency. In case of a by-product of coal-fired electrical power plants, only 70% of them are recycled and the remaining 30% of by-product are fully buried in surrounding ground. Consequently, this study deals with coal ash backfilling mechanism in abandoned mine openings for the purposes of increasing the coal ash recycling rate as well as securing the mine area stability. In order to analyze the backfill and ground reinforcement by interaction between rock mass and backfills, the copying samples of discontinuous surface with different roughnesses were produced for bond strength tests and direct shear tests. And statistical analysis was also conducted to decide the characteristics of bond and shear behavior with joint roughness and their curing day. Numerical simulations were also analyzed for examining the effect of interface behavior on ground stability.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.347-370
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• 2011

Slurry type shield would be very effective for the tunnelling in a sandy ground, when the slurry pressure would be properly adjusted. Low slurry pressure could cause a tunnel face failure or a ground settlement in front of the tunnel face. Thus, the stability of tunnel face could be maintained by applying an excess slurry pressure that is larger than the active earth pressure. However, the slurry pressure should increase properly because an excessively high slurry pressure could cause the slurry flow out or the passive failure of the frontal ground. It is possible to apply the high slurry pressure without passive failure if a horizontal impermeable layer is located in the ground in front of the tunnel face, but its location, size, and effects are not clearly known yet. In this research, two-dimensional model tests were carried out in order to find out the effect of a horizontal impermeable layer for the slurry shield tunnelling in a saturated sandy ground. In tests slurry pressure was increased until the slurry flowed out of the ground surface or the ground fails. Location and dimension of the impermeable layer were varied. As results, the maximum and the excess slurry pressure in sandy ground were linearly proportional to the cover depth. Larger slurry pressure could be applied to increase the stability of the tunnel face when the impermeable layer was located in the ground above the crown in front of the tunnel face. The most effective length of the impermeable grouting layer was 1.0 ~ 1.5D, and the location was 1.0D above the crown level. The safety factor could be suggested as the ratio of the maximum slurry pressure to the active earth pressure at the tunnel face. It could also be suggested that the slurry pressure in the magnitude of 3.5 ~4.0 times larger than the active earth pressure at the initial tunnel face could be applied if the impermeable layer was constructed at the optimal location.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.59-78
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• 2024

In tunnel construction, the stability is evaluated by the settlement of adjacent structures and ground, but the shear strain of the ground is the main factor that determines the failure mechanism of the ground due to the tunnel excavation and the change of the operating load, and can be used to review the stability of the tunnel excavation and to calculate the reinforcement area. In this study, a twin tunnel excavation was simulated on a soft ground in an urban area through a laboratory model test to analyze the behavior of the twin tunnel excavation on the adjacent pile grouped foundation and adjacent ground. Both the displacement and the shear strain of ground were obtained using a close-range photogrammetry during laboratory model test. In addition, two-dimensional finite element numerical analysis was performed based on the model test. The results of a back-analysis showed that the maximum shear strain rate tends to decrease as the horizontal distance between the pillars of the twin tunnel and the vertical distance between the toe of the pile group and the crown of the tunnel were decreased. The impact of the second tunnel on the first tunnel and pile group was decreased as the horizontal distance between the pillars of the twin tunnel was increased. In addition, the vertical distance between the toe of the pile group and the crown of the tunnel had a relatively greater impact on the shear strain results than the horizontal distance of the pillars between the twin tunnels. According to the results of the close-range photogrammetry and numerical analysis, the settlement of adjacent pile group and adjacent ground was measured within the design criteria, but the shear strain of the ground was judged to be outside the range of small strain in all cases and required reinforcement.