• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.34 no.11
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• pp.43-55
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• 2018

AGF (Artificial Ground Freezing) method is a temporary ground improvement method which can apply to all types of soil with the purpose of high stiffness and low hydraulic conductivity. However, the groundwater flow and the heterogeneity of the ground increase the uncertainty of the ice-column formation which hinders the reliability of this method. The effects of groundwater flow and layered heterogeneity on ice-wall integrity by AGF method were analyzed using finite element analysis program for a coupled thermo-hydro phenomena in the freezing ground. Groundwater flow changes circular ice-column into elliptical shapes and increases the time required for the formation of ice walls. The previous theoretical formula overestimated the completion time of the ice wall and the critical groundwater velocity by neglecting the thermal interaction between adjacent ice-columns. Numerical results presented the corrected formula and verified the proposed equation for the dimensionless ice-wall completion time. In the layered heterogeneous ground, the thickness of the layer with higher hydraulic conductivity and its relative magnitude were found to be important factors in the ice-wall completion time and critical velocity.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.80 no.6
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• pp.701-709
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• 2021

The paper aims at improving the understanding and mitigating the effects of tunnel fires that may breakout due to the burning fuel and/or explosion within the tunnel. This study particularly focuses on the behavior of the commonly used horse shoe geometry of tunnel systems. The problem has been obtained using an adequate well-established program incorporating the Lagrangian approach. A transient-thermo-coupled static structural analysis is carried out. The effects of radiation and convection to the outer walls of the tunnel is studied. The paper also presents the impact of the hazard on the structural integrity of the tunnel. A methodology is proposed to study the tunnel fire using a model which uses equivalent steel sheet to represent the presence of reinforcements to improve the computational efficiency with adequate validation. A parametric study has been carried out and the effect of suitable lining property for mitigating the fire hazard is arrived at. Detailed analysis is done for the threshold limits of the properties of the lining material to check if it is acceptable in all aspects for the integrity of the tunnel. The study may prove useful for developing insights for ensuring tunnel fire safety. To conduct such studies experimentally are tremendously costly but are required to gain confidence. But, scaled models, as well as loading and testing conditions, cannot be studied by many trials experimentally as the cost will shoot up sharply. In this context, the results obtained from such computational studies with a feasible variation of various combinations of parameters may act as a set of guidelines to freeze the adequate combination of various parameters to conduct one or two costly experiments for confidence building.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.433-445
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• 2021

Artificial ground freezing (AGF) is a commonly used geotechnical support technique that can be applied in any soil type and has low environmental impact. Experimental and numerical investigations have been conducted to optimize AGF for application in diverse scenarios. Precise simulation of groundwater flow is crucial to improving the reliability these investigations' results. Previous experimental research has mostly considered horizontal seepage flow, which does not allow accurate calculation of the groundwater flow velocity due to spatial variation of the piezometric head. This study adopted vertical seepage flow-which can maintain a constant cross-sectional area-to eliminate the limitations of using horizontal seepage flow. The closure time is a measure of the time taken for an impermeable layer to begin to form, this being the time for a frozen soil-ice wall to start forming adjacent to the freeze pipes; this is of great importance to applied AGF. This study reports verification of the reliability of our experimental apparatus and measurement system using only water, because temperature data could be measured while freezing was observed visually. Subsequent experimental AFG tests with saturated sandy soil were also performed. From the experimental results, a method of estimating closure time is proposed using the inflection point in the thermal conductivity difference between pore water and pore ice. It is expected that this estimation method will be highly applicable in the field. A further parametric study assessed factors influencing the closure time using a two-dimensional coupled thermo-hydraulic numerical analysis model that can simulate the AGF of saturated sandy soil considering groundwater flow. It shows that the closure time is affected by factors such as hydraulic gradient, unfrozen permeability, particle thermal conductivity, and freezing temperature. Among these factors, changes in the unfrozen permeability and particle thermal conductivity have less effect on the formation of frozen soil-ice walls when the freezing temperature is sufficiently low.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.1907-1914
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• 2013

Textile-type heat exchangers installed on the tunnel walls for facilitating ground source heat pump systems, so called "energy textile", was installed in an abandoned railroad tunnel around Seocheon, South Korea. To evaluate thermal performance of the energy textile, a series of long-term monitoring was performed by artificially applying daily intermittent cooling and heating loads on the energy textile. In the course of the experimental measurement, the inlet and outlet fluid temperatures of the energy textile, pumping rate, temperature distribution in the ground, and air temperature inside the tunnel were continuously measured. From the long-term monitoring, the heat exchange rate was recorded as in the range of 57.6~143.5 W per one unit of the energy textile during heating operation and 362.3~558.4 W per one unit during cooling operation. In addition, the heat exchange rate of energy textile was highly sensitive to a change in air temperature inside the tunnel. The field measurements were verified by a 3D computational fluid dynamics analysis (FLUENT) with the consideration of air temperature variation inside the tunnel. The verified numerical model was used to evaluate parametrically the effect of drainage layer in the energy textile.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.9-19
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• 2020

An integrated finite element model composed of a boiler and its supporting steel structure for a 375-MW coal-fired power plant was developed. This study used the developed model for seismic analysis using SAP2000 software. For the complex superheaters, reheaters, economizers, and membrane walls of the boiler, which consisted of numerous tubes, a method of modeling them by the equivalent elements in the viewpoint of stiffness and/or inertia was proposed. In addition, a method of modeling for the connection between the boiler and steel structure was proposed. Many hangers that connect the boiler to the girders of a steel structure were transformed into equivalent hangers by decreasing the number. The displacements of the boiler stoppers on the buckstay and the posts of the steel structure were coupled by considering their interface condition. Static analysis under the self-loading condition for the developed integrated model was implemented, and the results of deformation indicated that the behavior of the steel members and the major components of the boiler were appropriate. In conclusion, the integrated model developed in this study can be used to evaluate the safety of the boiler and steel structure under seismic loads.

• Korean Journal of Dental Materials
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.243-256
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the anodization and cyclic calcification treatment on the surface characteristic and bioactivity of the titanium thin sheet in order to obtain basic data for the production of bioactive titanium membrane. A $30{\times}20{\times}0.08mm$ titanium sheets were prepared, and then they were pickled for 10 seconds in the solution which was mixed with $HNO_3:HF:H_2O$ in a ratio of 12: 7: 81. The $TiO_2$ nanotube layer was formed to increase the specific surface area of the titanium, and then the cyclic calcification treatment was performed to induce precipitation of hydroxiapatite by improvement of the bioactivity. The corrosion resistance test, wettability test and immersion test in simulated body solution were conducted to investigate the effect of these surface treatments. The nanotubes formed by the anodization treatment have a dense structure in which small diameter tubes are formed between relatively large diameter tubes, and their inside was hollow and the outer walls were coupled to each other. The hydroxyapatite precipitates were well combined on the nanotubes by the penetration into the nanotube layer by successive cyclic calcification treatment, and the precipitation of hydroxyapatite tended to increase proportionally after immersion in simulated body solution as the number of cycles increased. In conclusion, it was confirmed that induction of precipitation of hydroxyapatite by cyclic calcification treatment after forming the nanotube $TiO_2$ nanotube layer on the surface of the titanium membrane can contribute to improvement of bioactivity.