• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.69 no.6
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• pp.651-665
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• 2019

Past earthquakes have shown that appropriately designed and detailed buildings with shear walls have great performance such a way that a considerable portion of inelastic energy dissipation occurs in these structural elements. A plastic hinge is fundamentally an energy diminishing means which decrease seismic input energy through the inelastic deformation. Plastic hinge development in a RC shear wall in the areas which have plastic behavior depends on the ground motions characteristics as well as shear wall details. One of the most generally used forms of structural walls is flanged RC wall. Because of the flanges, these types of shear walls have large in-plane and out-of-plane stiffness and develop high shear stresses. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate the main characteristics of these structural components and provide a more comprehensive expression of plastic hinge length in the application of performance-based seismic design method and promote the development of seismic design codes for shear walls. In this regard, the effects of axial load level, wall height, wall web and flange length, as well as various features of earthquakes, are examined numerically by finite element methods and the outcomes are compared with consistent experimental data. Based on the results, a new expression is developed which can be utilized to determine the length of plastic hinge area in the flanged RC shear walls.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.625-636
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• 2022

The standard penetration test (SPT) obtaining the N value of the number of blows has been widely used in various subsurface conditions, including in weathered soil and rock on fresh bedrock, in geotechnical studies pertaining to the design of foundations and earth structures. This study examined the applicability of SPTs terminated conventionally after 50 blows for a penetration of less than 30 cm, particularly in weathered strata, at four sites in Korea. The N values obtained during practical SPTs are typically extrapolated linearly at 30 cm penetration, despite the possibility of a nonlinear relationship between blow counts and penetration. Such nonlinearity in weathered strata has been verified by performing special SPTs ensuring 30 cm penetration. To quantify the nonlinearity in dense strata, we conducted statistical regression analyses comparing the differences (DN) between the N values measured by the special SPTs and those extrapolated using the practical approach with the differences (DP) between the 30 cm penetration and the penetration during 50 blows. Bi-linear relationship models between DN and DP were subsequently proposed for determining the N values at 30 cm penetration in weathered strata. The N values reflecting nonlinearity could be determined from the linearly extrapolated N values by adding a modeled DN value.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.26 no.11
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• pp.75-87
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• 2010

Incessant rainfalls in unsaturated soil raises pore water pressure and drops shear stress. Controlling pore water pressure in unsaturated soil prevents pressure increase and leads to slope stability. Laboratory experiment of pore water absorption in soil tank has been conducted for pore pressure decrease in soil slope under artifical rainfall supplied in varying rainfall indensities. Soil slope failure triggers the deepening of the wetting front to critical depth accompanied by decrease in matric suction induced by water infilteration. This paper addresses an experimental design for absorption pipe to prevent pore pressure increase in unsaturated soil slope from heavy rain. It is expected that absorption pipe will be widely used in unsaturated soil slope to strengthen slope stability.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.101-110
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• 2007

In order to investigate the effect of the pile shape on the bearing capacity of non-displacement piles, a series of model pile load tests were performed using a calibration chamber and three model piles with different shape. Results of the model tests showed that the bearing capacity of tapered piles was affected by its taper angle as well as the stress states and relative density of soil. Based on the results of model pile load tests, a new design equation for estimation of the bearing capacity of non-displacement piles was proposed, and it takes into account the effect of the taper angles on the bearing capacity of non-displacement piles.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.625-633
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• 2023

The volume changes associated with moisture or suction variation in expansive soils are of geotechnical and geoenvironmental design concern. These changes can impact the performance of infrastructure projects and lightweight structures. Assessment of unsaturated function for these materials leads to better interpretation and understanding, as well as providing accurate and economic design. In this study, expansive soils from different regions of Saudi Arabia were studied for their basic properties including gradation, plasticity and shrinkage, swelling, and consolidation characteristics. The unsaturated soil functions of saturated water content, air-entry values, and residual states were determined by conducting the tests for the entire soil water characteristic curves (SWCC) using different techniques. An attempt has been made to provide a prediction model for unsaturated properties based on the basic properties of these soils. Once the profile of SWCC has been predicted the time and cost for many tests can be saved. These predictions can be utilized in practice for the application of unsaturated soil mechanics on geotechnical and geoenvironmental projects.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.129-142
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• 2024

The most significant soil parameters that are utilized in geotechnical engineering projects' design and implementations are soil strength parameters including friction (ϕ), cohesion (c), and uniaxial compressive strength (UCS). Understanding soil shear strength parameters can be guaranteed the design success and stability of structures. In this regard, professionals always looking for ways to get more accurate estimations. The presented study attempted to investigate soil shear strength parameters by using multivariate regression and multilayer perceptron predictive models which were implemented on 100 specimens' data collected from the Tabriz region (NW of Iran). The uniaxial (UCS), liquid limit (LL), plasticity index (PI), density (γ), percentage of fine-grains (pass #200), and sand (pass #4) which are used as input parameters of analysis and shear strength parameters predictions. A confusion matrix was used to validate the testing and training data which is controlled by the coefficient of determination (R²), mean absolute (MAE), mean squared (MSE), and root mean square (RMSE) errors. The results of this study indicated that MLP is able to predict the soil shear strength parameters with an accuracy of about 93.00% and precision of about 93.5%. In the meantime, the estimated error rate is MAE = 2.0231, MSE = 2.0131, and RMSE = 2.2030. Additionally, R² is evaluated for predicted and measured values correlation for friction angle, cohesion, and UCS are 0.914, 0.975, and 0.964 in the training dataset which is considerable.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.5-17
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• 2005

Spatial uncertainty of Busan marine clay ground, which commonly occurs during site investigation testing, data analysis and transformation modeling, has been described. In this paper geotechnical uncertainty of shear strength indicator $N_k$ has been quantified in both horizontal direction and vertical direction using geostatistical Kriging method. Most of soil data used are from 25 boring tests, 75 laboratory tests, 124 field vane tests and 25 cone penetration tests (CPT). CPT-$N_k$ data for undrained shear strength determination, which are the most important properties in geotechnical design stages, have been analysed. Comparison between cone factor from conventional CPT-based method and that of geostatistical method shows that geostatistical Kriging method is an ideal tool to quantify the spatial variability of uncertainty from self-correlation of soil property of interest, and can be recommended to identify the spatial distribution of consolidation .md shear strength of soils at any sites concerned.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.283-290
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• 2016

Recent, the construction of the multi-purpose double-deck tunnel is required to solve the flood protection and congested area at urban city. The multi-purpose double-deck tunnel is desperately needed for the introduction of efficient utilization of underground space in addition to the main feature of road capabilities. A basic review was performed for site selection to consider the control capability and features of road tunnel at the same time, and the processable flow in accordance with tunnels cross section of double deck tunnel. Site Selection Criteria for multi-purpose use of the double-deck tunnel has been proposed through the site selection criteria by use of the tunnels review. Also the estimation processable flow was performed to review the versatility of double-deck tunnel due to design of tunnel cross-section. Site Selection of double-deck tunnel from this study can be seen the need for a complex consideration through a variety of analyzes.

• Geotechnical Engineering
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.81-92
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• 1998

A beam on elasto-plastic foundation modeling of soldier pile and woodlagging tieback walls or anchored walls was developed and tested. An instrumented full scale tieback wall in sand was constructed at the National Geotechnical Experimentation Bite located on Texas A&M University. The experimental earth pressure deflection relationship (p-y curves) was developed from the measurements. The construction sequence was simulated in the proposed method. The conceptual methodology of an anchored wall design was introduced by using the proposed method. The proposed method was evaluated with the measurements of case histories in sand and clay. A parametric research was performed to study the most influencing factors for the proposed method. It is concluded that the proposed method represents a significant improvement on the prediction of bending moments and deflections of the properly designed walls.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.85-94
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• 2012

Recently, growing interests in frozen ground have stimulated us to advance fundamental theories and systematic researches on soil behavior under freezing conditions. Unlike the well-established soil mechanics theory, temperature variation and phase change of pore-water cause water migration to cold side, ground heaving, sharp increase in earth pressure, etc., which bring about serious problems in frozen geotechnical structures. Elasto-plastic mechanical constitutive model for frozen/unfrozen soil subjected to fully coupled THM phenomena is formulated based on a new stress variable that is continuous in frozen-unfrozen transitional regions. Numerical simulations are conducted to discuss numerical reliability and applicability of the developed constitutive model: one-dimensional heaving pressure, tri-axial compression test, and one-side freezing tests. The numerical results show that developed model can efficiently describe complex THM phenomena of frozen soil, and they can be utilized to analyze and design the geotechnical structures under freezing conditions, and predict their long-term behavior.