• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.36 no.10
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• pp.979-988
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• 2012

The 3D structure of GDL for fuel cells was measured using high-resolution X-ray tomography in order to study material transport in the GDL. A computational algorithm has been developed to remove noise in the 3D image and construct 3D elements representing carbon fibers of GDL, which were used for both structural and fluid analyses. Changes in the pore structure of GDL under various compression levels were calculated, and the corresponding volume meshes were generated to evaluate the anisotropic permeability of gas within GDL as a function of compression. Furthermore, the transfer of liquid water and reactant gases was simulated by using the volume of fluid (VOF) and pore-network model (PNM) techniques. In addition, the simulation results of liquid water transport in GDL were validated by analogous experiments to visualize the diffusion of fluid in porous media. Through this research, a procedure for simulating the material transport in deformed GDL has been developed; this will help in optimizing the clamping force of fuel cell stacks as well as in determining the design parameters of GDL, such as thickness and porosity.

• Water Engineering Research
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.123-138
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• 2001

An injection experiment was carried ut to investigate the pressure domain within which hydromechanical coupling influences considerably the hydrologic behavior of a granite rock mass. The resulting database is used for testing a numerical model dedicated to the analysis of such hydromechanical interactions. These measurements were performed in an open hole section, isolated from shallower zones by a packer set at a depth of 275 m and extending down to 840 m. They consisted in a series of flow meter injection tests, at increasing injection rates. Field results showed that conductive fractures from a dynamic and interdependent network, that individual fracture zones could not be adequately modeled as independent systems, that new fluid intakes zones appeared when pore pressure exceeded the minimum principal stress magnitude in that well, and that pore pressures much larger than this minimum stress could be further supported by the circulated fractures. These characteristics give rise to the question of the influence of the morphology of the natural fracture network in a rock mass under anisotropic stress conditions on the effects of hydromechanical couplings.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.39-51
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• 2010

The system of pores of autoclaved aerated concrete (AAC) is described by the so-called cherry-pit model, a random system of partially interpenetrating spheres. For the simulation of fracture processes, the solid phase is approximated by an irregular spatial network of beams obtained by means of the so-called radical tessellation with respect to the pore spheres. FE calculations using standard software (ANSYS) yield the strain energies of the beams. These energies are used as fracture criterion according to which highly loaded beams are considered as broken and are removed from the network. The paper investigates the relationship between mean fracture strength and microstructure for structures close to real AAC samples and virtual structures with particular geometrical properties.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.20 no.8
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• pp.77-87
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• 2004

In this paper a back-propagation neural network model is developed to estimate the preconsolidation pressure of Korean soft soils based on 176 oedometer tests and 63 piezocone test results, which were compiled from 11 sites - western and southern parts of Korea. Only 147 data were used for the training of the neural network and 29 data, which were not used during the training phase, were used for the verification of trained network. Empirical and theoretical models were compared with the developed neural network model. A simple 4-4-9-1 multi-layered neural network has been developed. The cone tip resistance $q_T$ penetration pore pressure $u_2$, total overburden pressure $\sigma_{vo}$ and effective overburden pressure $\sigma'_{vo}$ were selected as input variables. The developed neural network model was validated by comparing the prediction results of the proposed neural network model for the new data which were not used for the training of the model with the measured preconsolidation pressures. It can also predict more precise and reliable preconsolidation pressures than the analytical and empirical model. Furthermore, it can be carefully concluded that neural network model can be used as a generalized model for prediction of preconsolidation pressure throughout Korea since developed model shows good performance for the new data which were not used in both training and testing data.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.155-159
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• 2020

Nanoporous silica aerogel insulation material is both lightweight and efficient; it has important value in the fields of aerospace, petrochemicals, electric metallurgy, shipbuilding, precision instruments, and so on. A theoretical calculation model and experimental measurement of equivalent thermal conductivity for nanoporous silica aerogel insulation material are introduced in this paper. The heat transfer characteristics and thermal insulation principle of aerogel nano are analyzed. The methods of SiO₂ aerogel production are compared. The pressure range of SiO₂ aerogel is 1Pa-atmospheric pressure; the temperature range is room temperature-900K. The pore diameter range of particle SiO₂ aerogel is about 5 to 100 nm, and the average pore diameter range of about 20 ~ 40 nm. These results show that experimental measurements are in good agreement with theoretical calculation values. For nanoporous silica aerogel insulation material, the heat transfer calculation method suitable for nanotechnology can precisely calculate the equivalent thermal conductivity of aerogel nano insulation materials. The network structure is the reason why the thermal conductivity of the aerogel is very low. Heat transfer of materials is mainly realized by convection, radiation, and heat transfer. Therefore, the thermal conductivity of the heat transfer path in aerogel can be reduced by nanotechnology.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.27 no.9
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• pp.77-86
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• 2011

The stress condition mainly dominates the thermal conductivity of soils whereas governing factors such as unit weight and porosity suggested by empirical correlations are still valid. The 3D thermal network model enables evaluation of the stress-dependent thermal conductivity of particulate materials generated by discrete element method (DEM). The relationship among dominant factors is analyzed based on the coordination number and porosity determined by stress condition and thermal conductivity of pore fluid. Results show that the variation of thermal conductivity is strongly attributed to the enlargement of inter-particle contact area by loading history and pore fluid conductivity. This study highlights that the anisotropic evolution of thermal conductivity depends on the directional load and that the particle-scale mechanism mainly dictates the heat transfer in soils.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.131-138
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• 2008

Humidity and strain were estimated for understanding the relation between humidity change by self-desiccation and shrinkage in high-performance concrete with low water binder ratio. Internal humidity change and shrinkage strain were about 10%, 4% and $320\times10^{-6}$, $120\times10^{-6}$ respectively on concrete with water binder ratio 0.3, 0.4 and from the results, humidity change and shrinkage represented the strong linear relation regardless of mixture. For specifying the relation on internal humidity change and autogenous shrinkage strain, shrinkage model was established which is driven by capillary pressure in pore water and surface energy in hydrates on the assumption of a single network and extended meniscus in pore system of concrete. This model and experimental results had a similar tendency so it would be concluded that the internal humidity change by self-desiccation in HPC originated in small pores less than 20 nm, therefore controlling plan on autogenous shrinkage might be focused on surface tension of water and degree of saturation in small pore.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.61-70
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• 2008

In this study, undrained triaxial (CU) tests were performed on low-plastic silt of Nakdong River in order to investigate the undrained shear behavior of low-plastic silt. In experimental results, the deviator stress showed the hardening behavior after reaching its yield stress like the tendency of common sand, and the pore water pressure was gradually decreased to critical state after the maximum value. In the effective stress paths, regardless of consolidation stress or overconsolidation ratios, both a critical state line (CSL) and a phase transformation line (PTL) exist in the effective stress path that is similar to the case of sand. The behavior of low-plastic silt was predicted by the Modified Cam-Clay (MCC) model, the Jordan and the Elman-jordan model that is artificial neural network model. According to predicted results, the overall undrained shear behavior of low-plastic silt could not be predicted with the MCC model, but the Jordan and Elman-Jordan model showed well-matched experiment results.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.397-414
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• 2020

In this paper, practical predictive models for soil shear strength parameters are proposed. As cohesion and internal friction angle are of essential shear strength parameters in any geotechnical studies, we try to predict them via artificial neural network (ANN) and neuro-imperialism approaches. The proposed models was based on the result of a series of consolidated undrained triaxial tests were conducted on reinforced sandy soil. The experimental program surveys the increase in internal friction angle of sandy soil due to addition of polypropylene fibers with different lengths and percentages. According to the result of the experimental study, the most important parameters impact on internal friction angle i.e., fiber percentage, fiber length, deviator stress, and pore water pressure were selected as predictive model inputs. The inputs were used to construct several ANN and neuro-imperialism models and a series of statistical indices were calculated to evaluate the prediction accuracy of the developed models. Both simulation results and the values of computed indices confirm that the newly-proposed neuro-imperialism model performs noticeably better comparing to the proposed ANN model. While neuro-imperialism model has training and test error values of 0.068 and 0.094, respectively, ANN model give error values of 0.083 for training sets and 0.26 for testing sets. Therefore, the neuro-imperialism can provide a new applicable model to effectively predict the internal friction angle of fiber-reinforced sandy soil.

• Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering
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• v.35 no.12
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• pp.2384-2393
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• 2018

Porous alginate-based hydrogel beads (porous ABH) have been prepared through a facile and sustainable template-assisted method using nano-calcium carbonate and nano-$CaCO_3$ as pore-directing agent for the efficient capture of methylene blue (MB). The materials were characterized by various techniques. The sorption capacities of ABH towards MB were compared with pure sodium alginate (ABH-1:0) in batch and fixed-bed column adsorption studies. The obtained adsorbent (ABH-1:3) has a higher BET surface area and a smaller average pore diameter. The maximum adsorption capacity of ABH-1:3 obtained from Langmuir model was as high as $1,426.0mg\;g^{-1}$. The kinetics strictly followed pseudo-second order rate equation and the adsorption reaction was effectively facilitated, approximately 50 minutes to achieve adsorption equilibrium, which was significantly shorter than that of ABH-1:0. The thermodynamic parameters revealed that the adsorption was spontaneous and exothermic. Thomas model fitted well with the breakthrough curves and could describe the dynamic behavior of the column. More significantly, the uptake capacity of ABH-1:3 was still higher than 75% of the maximum adsorption capacity even after ten cycles, indicating that this novel adsorbent can be a promising adsorptive material for removal of MB from aqueous solution under batch and continuous systems.