• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.16 no.5 s.64
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• pp.357-367
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• 2006

Recently, as the construction of new railway and the relocation of existing line increase, tunnel structures grow longer. The railway fire accidents in long tunnel bring large damages of human life and disaster. The interest of safety in long tunnel have a growing and the safety standard of long tunnel is tightening. For that reason, at the planning of long tunnel, the optimum design of safety facility in long tunnel for minimizing the risks and satisfying the safety standard is needed. For the reasonable design of long railway tunnel considering high safety, qualitative estimation for tunnel safety is required. In this study, QRA (Quantitative Risk Assessment) technique is applied to design of long railway tunnel for assuring the safety function and estimating the risk of safety. The case study for safety design in long railway tunnel is tarried out to verifying the QRA technique for two railway tunnels. Thus, the inclined and vertical shaft for escape way and safety facilities in long tunnel are planned, and the risks of tunnel safety for each case are estimated quantitatively.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.42-58
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• 2001

In order to protect the environment from waste disposal activities, the prediction of the flux and flow paths of the contaminants from underground facilities should be assessed as accurately as possible. Especially, the prediction of the pathways and travel times of the nuclides from high level radioactive wastes in a deep repository to biosphere is one of the primary tasks for assessing the ultimate safety and performance of the repository. Since the contaminants are mainly transported with groundwater along the discontinuities developed within rock mass, the characteristics of groundwater flow through discontinuities is important for the prediction of contaminant fates as well as safety assessment of a repository. In this study, the actual fracture network could be effectively generated based on in situ data by separating geometric parameter and hydraulic parameter. The calculated anisotropic hydraulic conductivity was applied to a 3D porous medium model to calculate the path flow and travel time of the large studied area with the consideration of the complex topology in the area. Using the model, the pathways and travel times for groundwater were analyzed. From this study, it was concluded that the suggested techniques and procedures for predicting the pathways and travel times of groundwater from underground facilities to biosphere is acceptable and those can be applied to the safety assessment of a repository for radioactive wastes.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.48-55
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• 1999

One of the major roles of concrete lining is the supplementary support of ground load. Therefore, if there are cracks or deformation found in the lining, the causes should be carefully examined. Tunnel Soundness Evaluation System (DW-TSES) was developed to meet such requirements. Main facility of the system was intended to find the probable causes on the basis of the apparent changes in lining and the environmental conditions. It also includes facilities for evaluating the soundness of a tunnel and indicating the method for repair or reinforcement. The characteristic feature of damages is used for reasoning in case of deterioration and leakage, and artificial neural network is used in external pressure. This process depends on the results of the case analyses and FDM, which have a collection of the typical features of different types of damages as well as the unusual changes caused by the external pressure. The comparison of the outputs of this system with those of expert's diagnoses draws the following conclusions. 1) Artificial neural network was a suitable tool to find to causes of damages by external pressure. 2) The environmental conditions improved the accuracy in reasoning. 3) The result of finding causes and evaluating soundness was helpful to suggest effective methods concerning tunnel maintenance.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.287-303
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• 2009

Rock mass in Baekrokdam at the summit of Hallasan in Jeju island is composed of two volcanic rock types: Baekrokdam trachybasalt at the eastern region and Hallasan trachyte at the western region. On-going rockfall and subsequent collapse of Baekrokdam wall rock are closely linked to the weathering of trachyte distributed in the western region of Baekrokdam. Samples of Hallasan trachyte showing different weathering grades had been collected and the polarizing microscopic observation, X-ray diffraction analysis and analysis for chemical weathering had been conducted. Formation of secondary minerals, especially clay minerals, by chemical weathering has not been identified, but the change of chemical weathering indices indicated that chemical weathering process had been proceeded to the degree for increasing and decreasing the contents of some chemical components. Changes in physical and mechanical rock properties due to weathering has also been examined. Artificial weathering test of freezing-thawing reveals that the process of crack initiation and propagation deteriorated the mechanical characteristics of Hallasan trachyte and $D_B$ = 1.5 or porosity = $20{\sim}21%$ would be the ultimate limiting value induced by the mechanical weathering processes.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.304-317
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• 2009

Most crystalline rocks have much higher compressive strength than tensile strength and show brittle failure. In-situ rock mass, strong enough in general sense, often fails in brittle manner when subjected to high stress exceeding strength in due of geometrically induced stress concentration or of high initial stress. Therefore, it is necessary to verify the brittle failure characteristics of rock and rock mass for proper stability assessment of underground structures excavated in great depths. In this study, damage controlled tests were conducted on biotite-granite and granitic gneiss, which are the two major crystalline rock types in Korea, to obtain the strain dependency characteristics of the cohesion and friction angle. A Cohesion-Weakening Friction-Strengthening (CWFS hereafter) model for each rock type was constructed and a series of compression tests were carried out numerically while varying confining pressures. The same tests were also conducted assuming the rock is Mohr-Coulomb material and results were compared.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.343-354
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• 2008

A new method is suggested herein to measure the virgin earth stresses by means of a borehole. This novel concept is basically a combination of borehole stress relieving and borehole fracturing techniques. The destressing of the borehole is achieved by means of inducing thermal tensile stresses at the borehole periphery by using a cryogenic fluid such as Liquid Nitrogen($LN_2$). The borehole wall eventually develops fractures when the induced thermal stresses exceed the existing compressive stresses at the borehole periphery in addition to the tensile strength of the rock. The above concept is theoretically analyzed for its potential applicability to interpret in situ stress levels from the tensile fracture stresses and the corresponding borehole wall temperatures. Coupled thermo-mechanical numerical simulations are also conducted using FLAC3D, with thermal option, to check the validity of the proposed techniques. From the preliminary theoretical and numerical analysis, the method suggested for the measurement of in situ stresses appears to be capable of accurate estimation of the virgin stresses by monitoring tensile crack formation at a borehole wall and recording the wall temperatures at the time of crack initiation.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.150-159
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• 2013

It is generally well known that the stratification of thermal energy in heat stores can be improved by increasing the aspect ratio (the height-to-width ratio) of the stores. Accordingly, it will be desirable to apply a high aspect ratio so as to demonstrate the good thermal performance of heat stores. However, as the aspect ratio of a store increases, the height of the store become larger compared to its width, which may be unfavorable for the structural stability of the store. Therefore, to determine an optimum aspect ratio of heat stores, a quantitative mechanical stability assessment should be performed in addition to thermal performance evaluations. In the present study, we numerically investigated the mechanical stability of silo-shaped rock caverns for underground thermal energy storage at different aspect ratios. The applied aspect ratios ranged from 1 to 6 and the mechanical stability was examined based on factor of safety using a shear strength reduction method. The results from the present study showed that the factor of safety of rock caverns tended to decrease with the increase in aspect ratio and the stress ratio of the surrounding rock mass was influential to the stability of the caverns. In addition, the numerical results demonstrated that under the same conditions of rock mass properties and aspect ratio, mechanical stability could be improved by the reduction in cavern size (storage volume), which indicates that one can design high-aspect-ratio rock caverns by dividing a single large cavern into multiple small caverns.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.130-140
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• 2013

In this study, scaled model tests were performed to investigate the stability of twin tunnels with small clearance, where the pillar widths were 0.5D and 0.25D, respectively. The tunnels were supposed to be constructed in anisotropic weathered rocks with $30^{\circ}$ inclined bedding planes, and the model tests were conducted under the condition of lateral pressure ratio, 1. Six types of test models which had respectively different pillar widths and support conditions were experimented, where crack initiating pressures, maximum pressures, failure modes of pillar and deformation behaviors around tunnels were investigated. The models with wider pillar were cracked under higher pressure than the models with shallower pillar. The models with lining support were cracked under higher pressure and showed less tunnel convergence than the unsupported models. The models with both lining and pillar reinforcement were proved to be most stable among the tested models. In particular, as the model of 0.25D pillar width with only lining support showed shear failure of pillar according to the existing bedding planes, so both lining and pillar reinforcement were thought to be indispensable in that case of tunnel.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.59-71
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• 2018

Since the generalized Hoek-Brown (GHB) function predicts the strength of the jointed rock mass in a systematic manner by use of GSI index, it is widely used in rock engineering practices. In this study, a series of 2D elasto-plastic FE analysis, which adopts the GHB criterion as a yield function, was carried out to investigate the radial convergence characteristics of circular tunnel excavated in the GHB rock mass. The effect of the plastic potential function on the elasto-plastic displacement was also examined. In the analysis, the wide range of both the $K(={\sigma}_h/{\sigma}_v)$ and GSI values are considered. For each K value, the variation of the ratio of sidewall displacement to roof displacement was calculated with varying GSI values and the obtained displacement patterns were analysed. The calculation results show that the displacement ratio significantly depends not only on the K value but also on the range of GSI value. In particular, for lower range of GSI value, the displacement ratio pattern calculated in the elasto-plastic regime is opposite to that predicted by the elasticity theory. In addition, the variation of the radial displacement ratio with GSI value for different types of plastic potential function showed similar trend.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.97-110
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• 2018

The application of sprayed waterproofing membrane with high adhesion and ductility is considered to be promising as a measure for repair and reinforcement of a tunnel structure. Therefore, a powder-type and one-component membrane prototype with high tensile and bond strengths was made in this study. Then, its reinforcement effect on a shield segment was evaluated by carrying out a series of full-scale loading tests of segment specimens on which the membrane was sprayed. From the tests, it was confirmed that the initial cracking loads increased by approximately 34% due to cracking retardation by membrane coating. Even though the increase of failure loads were not so high as cracking loads, the strain-softening behaviors were observed from specimens coated by the membrane. Therefore, it is expected that the membrane coated on the inner surface of a lining might be effective in preventing its brittle failure.