• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.431-446
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• 2017

Rock bridges in rock masses would increase the bearing capacity of Non-persistent discontinuities. In this paper the effect of ratio of rock bridge surface to joint surface, rock bridge shape and normal load on failure behaviour of intermittent rock joint were investigated. A total of 42 various models with dimensions of $15cm{\times}15cm{\times}15cm$ of plaster specimens were fabricated simulating the open joints possessing rock bridge. The introduced rock bridges have various continuities in shear surface. The area of the rock bridge was $45cm^2$ and $90cm^2$ out of the total fixed area of $225cm^2$ respectively. The fabricated specimens were subjected to shear tests under normal loads of 0.5 MPa, 2 MPa and 4 MPa in order to investigate the shear mechanism of rock bridge. The results indicated that the failure pattern and the failure mechanism were affected by two parameters; i.e., the ratio of joint surface to rock bridge surface and normal load. So that increasing in joint area in front of the rock bridge changes the shear failure mode to tensile failure mode. Also the tensile failure change to shear failure by increasing the normal load.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.123-134
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• 2021

In this paper, the carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) grids embedded in polymer cement mortar (PCM) shotcrete (CFRP-PCM method) was conducted to repair the degraded tunnel linings with a cavity. Subsequently, the reinforcing effect of the CFRP-PCM method under different degrees of lining deterioration was quantitatively evaluated. Finally, the limit state design method of the M-N interaction curve was conducted to determine whether the structure reinforced by the CFRP-PCM method is in a safe state. The main results indicated that when the cavity is at the shoulder, the lining damage rate is more serious. In addition, the remarkably reinforcing effect on the degraded tunnel linings could be achieved by applying a higher grade of CFRP grids, whereas the optimization effect is no longer obvious when the grade of CFRP grids is too high (CR8); Furthermore, it is found that the M-N numerical values of the ten reinforcing designs of the CFRP-PCM method are distributed outside the corresponding M-N theoretical interaction curves, and these designs should be avoided in the corresponding reinforcing engineering.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.481-492
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• 2019

Due to the underground openings, the tangentially concentrated stress of the tunnel remains larger at excavation boundary and decreases toward the interior of the surrounding rock with a certain gradient. In order to study the effect of different gradient stress on rockburst, the true-triaxial gradient and hydraulic-pneumatic combined test apparatus were carried out to simulate the rockburst processes. Under the different gradient stress conditions, the rock-like specimen (gypsum) was tested independently through three principal stress directions loading--fast unloading of single surface--top gradient and hydraulic-pneumatic combined loading, which systematically analyzed the macro-mesoscopic damage phenomena, force characteristics and acoustic emission (AE) signals of the specimen during rockburst. The experimental results indicated that the rockburst test under the gradient and hydraulic-pneumatic combined loading conditions could perfectly reflect the rockburst processes and their stress characteristics; Relatively high stress loading could cause specimen failure, but could not determine its mode. The rockburst under the action of gradient stress suggested that the failure mode of specimen mainly depended on the stress gradient. When the stress gradient was lower, progressive and static spalling failure occured and the rockburst grades were relatively slight. On the other hand, shear fractures occurred in rockbursts accounted for increasingly large proportion as the stress gradient increased and the rockburst occurred more intensely and suddenly, the progressive failure process became unconspicuous, and the rockburst grades were moderate or even stronger.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.207-214
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• 2019

Dams have a great importance on energy and irrigation. Dams must be evaluated statically and dynamically even after construction. For this purpose, Torul dam built between years 2000 and 2007 Harsit River in Gümüşhane province, Turkey, is selected as an application. The Torul dam has 137 m height and 322 GWh annual energy production capacity. Torul dam is a kind of concrete face rock fill dam (CFRD). In this study, static and pseudo seismic stability of Torul dam was investigated using finite element method. Torul dam model is constituted by numerical stress analysis named Phase2 which is based on finite element method. The dam was examined under 11 different water filling levels. Thirteenth stage of the numerical model is corresponding full reservoir condition which water filled up under crest line. Besides, pseudo static coefficients for dynamic condition applied to the dam in fourteenth stage of the model. Stability assessment of the Torul dam has been discussed according to the displacement throughout the dam body. For static and pseudo seismic cases, the displacements in the dam body have been compared. The total displacements of the dam according to its the empty state increase dramatically at the height of the water level of about 70 m and above. Compared to the pseudo-seismic analysis, the displacement of dam at the full reservoir condition is approximately two times as high as static analysis.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.515-525
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• 2019

The calculation of active earth pressure behind retaining wall is a typical three-dimensional (3D) problem with spatial effects. With the help of limit analysis, this paper firstly deduces the internal energy dissipation power equations and various external forces power equations of the 3D retaining wall under the nonlinear strength condition, such as to establish the work-energy balance equation. The pseudo-static method is used to consider the effect of earthquake on active earth pressure in horizontal state. The failure mode is a 3D curvilinear cone failure mechanism. For the different width of the retaining wall, the plane strain block is inserted in the symmetric plane. By optimizing all parameters, the maximum value of active earth pressure is calculated. In order to verify the validity of the new expressions obtained by the paper, the solutions are compared with previously published solutions. Agreement shows that the new expressions are effective. The results of different parameters are given in the forms of figures to analysis the influence caused by nonlinear strength parameters.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.317-322
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• 2019

This paper presents the results of parametric analyses to compute the axial capacity of a suction pile using 2D and 3D finite element approaches. The study is intended to simplify the process of analyzing suction piles from 3D to 2D model. The research focuses on obtaining the coefficient to be applied into the 2D model in order to obtain results that are as close as possible to the 3D model. Two 2D models were used in the analysis, namely the plane strain and axisymmetric models. The analyses were performed using two actual offshore soil data of the North and West Java Indonesia. The study reveals that the simplification of model through 2D Finite Element is achievable by applying the appropriate coefficient to the stiffness parameters. The results show that the simplified model of the 2D FEA provides more conservative results (with the difference between 2% to 7%) than the 3D FEA.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.547-558
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• 2018

Studies of soil dynamic properties in Malaysia are still very limited. This study aims to investigate the dynamic properties of two selected tropical residual soils (i.e., Sandy Clay and Sandy Silt) and a sand mining trail (Silty Sand) in Peninsular Malaysia using 1g shaking table test. The use of 1g shaking table test for soil dynamic testing is often constrained to large strain level and small confining pressure only. Three new experimental setups, namely large laminar shear box test (LLSBT), small chamber test with positive air pressure (SCT), and small sample test with suction (SSTS) are attempted with the aims of these experimental setups are capable of evaluating the dynamic properties of soils covering a wider range of shear strain and confining pressure. The details of each experimental setup are described explicitly in this paper. Experimental results show that the combined use of the LLSBT and SCT is capable of rendering soil dynamic properties covering a strain range of 0.017%-1.48% under confining pressures of 5-100 kPa. The studied tropical residual soils in Malaysia behaved neither as pure sand nor clay, but show a relatively good agreement with the dynamic properties of residual soils in Singapore. Effects of confining pressure and plasticity index on the studied tropical residual soils are found to be insignificant in this particular study.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.21-27
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• 2019

Rockburst disasters pose serious threat to mining safety and underground excavation, especially in China, resulting in massive life-wealth loss and even compulsive closed-down of some coal mines. To investigate the mechanism of rockbursts that occur under a state of static forces, a stress model with sidewall as prototype was developed and verified by a group of laboratory experiments and numerical simulations. In this model, roadway sidewall was simplified as a square plate with axial compression and end (horizontal) restraints. The stress field was solved via the Airy stress function. To track the "closeness degree" of the stress state approaching the yield limit, an unbalanced force F was defined based on the Mohr-Coulomb yield criterion. The distribution of the unbalanced force in the plane model indicated that only the friction angle above a critical value could cause the first failure on the coal in the deeper of the sidewall, inducing the occurrence of rockbursts. The laboratory tests reproduced the rockburst process, which was similar to the prediction from the theoretical model, numerical simulation and some disaster scenes.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.107-121
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• 2022

Coal pillar assessment is of broad importance to underground engineering structure, as the pillar failure can lead to enormous disasters. Because of the highly non-linear correlation between the pillar failure and its influential attributes, conventional forecasting techniques cannot generate accurate outcomes. To approximate the complex behavior of coal pillar, this paper elucidates a new idea to forecast the underground coal pillar stability using combined unsupervised-supervised learning. In order to build a database of the study, a total of 90 patterns of pillar cases were collected from authentic engineering structures. A state-of-the art feature depletion method, t-distribution symmetric neighbor embedding (t-SNE) has been employed to reduce significance of actual data features. Consequently, an unsupervised machine learning technique K-mean clustering was followed to reassign the t-SNE dimensionality reduced data in order to compute the relative class of coal pillar cases. Following that, the reassign dataset was divided into two parts: 70 percent for training dataset and 30 percent for testing dataset, respectively. The accuracy of the predicted data was then examined using support vector classifier (SVC) model performance measures such as precision, recall, and f₁-score. As a result, the proposed model can be employed for properly predicting the pillar failure class in a variety of underground rock engineering projects.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.423-435
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• 2022

Ground vibration generated repeatedly in blasting tunnel excavation sites is known to be one of the major hazards induced by blasting operations. Various studies have been conducted to minimize these hazards, both theoretical and empirical methods using electronic detonator, the deck charge method, the center-cut method among others Among these various existing methods for controlling the ground vibration, in this study, we investigated the cut method. In particular, we analyzed and compared the V-cut method, which is commonly used in tunnel blasting, to the double-drilled parallel method, which has recently been introduced in tunnel excavation site. To understand the rock fragmentation efficiency as well as the ground vibration controllability of the two methods, we performed in-situ field blasting tests with both cut methods at a tunnel excavation site. Additionally, numerical analysis by FLAC3D has been executed for a better understanding of fracture propagation pattern and ground vibration generation by each cut method. Ground vibration levels, by PPVs measured in field blasting tests and PPVs estimated in numerical simulations, showed a lower value in the double-drilled parallel compared with the V-cut method, although the exact values are quite different in field measurement and numerical estimation.