• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.833-839
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• 2018

Dynamic behaviour of a tunnel is one of the most important issues for the safety and it is generally subjected to the seismic response of the surrounding soil. Relative displacement occurred in tunnel lining during earthquake produces severe damage. Generally, it concentrates at the connecting area when two tunnels are connected in the ground. A flexible segment is a useful device for the mitigation of seismic loads on tunnel lining. In this study, 1-g shaking table tests are performed to investigate the acceleration response for the verification of the effect of flexible segment and to determine the optimum location of the flexible segment for connected tunnels. Four different seismic waves are considered; as a result, peak acceleration is reduced to 49% in case that flexible segment is implemented adjacent to connecting area. It also exhibited that the mitigation of acceleration response is verified in all seismic waves. Additionally, 3-dimensional numerical analysis is performed to compare and verify the results. And the numerical results show good agreement to those of the experimental study.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.79-91
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• 2019

Renewed interest in the long-term pile foundations has been driven by the increase in offshore wind turbine installation to generate renewable energy. A monopile subjected to repetitive loads experiences an evolution of displacements, pile rotation, and stress redistribution along the embedded portion of the pile. However, it is not fully understood how the embedded pile interacts with the surrounding soil elements based on different pile geometries. This study investigates the long-term soil response around offshore monopiles using finite element method. The semi-empirical numerical approach is adopted to account for the fundamental features of volumetric strain (terminal void ratio) and shear strain (shakedown and ratcheting), the strain accumulation rate, and stress obliquity. The model is tested with different strain boundary conditions and stress obliquity by relaxing four model parameters. The parametric study includes pile diameter, embedded length, and moment arm distance from the surface. Numerical results indicate that different pile geometries produce a distinct evolution of lateral displacement and stress. In particular, the repetitive lateral load increases the global lateral load resistance. Further analysis provides insight into the propagation of the shear localization from the pile tip to the ground surface.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.319-327
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• 2017

In this study, characteristics of seismic behaviors of offshore wind turbine systems using concrete-suction-type supporting structures are investigated. Applying hydrodynamic pressure from the surrounding sea water and interaction forces from the underlying soil to the structural system which is composed of RNA, the tower, and the supporting structure, a governing equation of the system is derived and its earthquake responses are obtained. It can be observed from the analysis results that the responses are significantly influenced by soil-structure interaction because dynamic responses for higher natural vibration modes are increased due to the flexibility of soil. Therefore, the soil-structure interaction must be taken into consideration for accurate assessment of dynamic behaviors of offshore wind turbine systems using concrete-suction-type supporting structures.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.143-150
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• 2010

Line source method of borehole system assumes the entire surrounding medium is uniform. However, thermal properties of grouting region are considerably different from those of surrounding soil. In this study we investigate the effect of grouting materials on the solution of line source method with the aid of numerical analysis. This numerical model generates the temperature of borehole fluid with which line source solution can be obtained. Then this solution can be compared with input condition of numerical model. The results of this comparison show that thermal conductivity and borehole thermal resistance of line source solution are approximately 86% and 91% of the input condition of numerical model. Chart method is developed in this study to find the numerical input conditions (thermal conductivity and borehole thermal resistance) from the line source solution. Thermal response test of test borehole is conducted, the results of which are approximately consistent with the Chart method. Thermal property changes of grouting materials on the line source solution are also examined.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.273-286
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• 2020

The pile group foundation is widely used for gravity pier of high-speed railway bridges in China. If a moderate or strong earthquake occurs, the pile-surrounding soil will exhibit obvious nonlinearity and significant pile group effect. In this study, an improved pushover analysis model for the pile group foundation with consideration of pile group effect is presented and validated by the quasi-static test. The improved model uses simplified springs to simulate the soil lateral resistance, side friction and tip resistance. PM (axial load-bending moment) plastic hinge model is introduced to simulate the impact of the axial force changing of pile group on their elastic-plastic characteristics. The pile group effect is considered in stress-stain relations of the lateral soil resistance with a reduction factor. The influence factors on nonlinear characteristics and plastic hinge distribution of the pile group foundation are discussed, including the pier height, longitudinal reinforcement ratio and stirrup ratio of the pile, and soil mechanical parameters. Furthermore, the displacement ductility factor, resistance increase factor and yielding stiffness ratio are provided to evaluate the seismic performance of soil-pile system. A case study for the pile group foundation of a railway simply supported beam bridge with a 32 m-span is conducted by numerical analysis. It is shown that the ultimate lateral force of pile group is not determined by the yielding force of the single one in these piles. Therefore, the pile group effect is essential for the seismic performance evaluation of the railway bridge with pile group foundation.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.327-336
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• 2024

Evaluation of tunnel performance in seismic-prone areas demands efficient means of estimating performance at different hazard levels. The present study introduces an innovative push-over analysis approach which employs the standard earthquake spectrum to simulate the performance of a tunnel. The numerical simulation has taken into account the lining and surrounding rock to calculate the rock-tunnel interaction subjected to a static push-over displacement regime. Elastic perfectly plastic models for the lining and hardening strain rock medium were used to portray the development of plastic hinges, nonlinear deformation, and performance of the tunnel structure. Separately using a computational algorithm, the non-linear response spectrum was approximated from the average shear strain of the rock model. A NATM tunnel in Turkey was chosen for parametric study. A seismic performance curve and two performance thresholds are introduced that are based on the proposed nonlinear seismic static loading approach and the formation of plastic hinges. The tunnel model was also subjected to a harmonic excitation with a smooth response spectrum and different amplitudes in the fully-dynamic phase to assess the accuracy of the approach. The parametric study investigated the effects of the lining stiffness and capacity and soil stiffness on the seismic performance of the tunnel.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.463-469
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• 2018

In offshore engineering, lateral cyclic loading may induce excessive lateral movement and bending strain in pile foundations. Previous studies mainly focused on deformation mechanisms of single piles due to lateral cyclic loading. In this paper, centrifuge model tests were conducted to investigate the response of a $2{\times}2$ pile group due to lateral cyclic loading in clay. After applying each loading-unloading cycle, the pile group cannot move back to its original location. It implies that residual movement and bending strain are induced in the pile group. This is because cyclic loading induces plastic deformation in the soil surrounding the piles. As the cyclic load increases from 62.5 to 375 kN, the ratio of the residual to the maximum pile head movements varies from 0.30 to 0.84. Moreover, the ratio of the residual to the maximum bending strains induced in the piles is in a range of 0.23 to 0.82. The bending strain induced in the front pile is up to 3.2 times as large as that in the rear pile. Thus, much more protection measures should be applied to the front piles to ensure the serviceability and safety of pile foundations.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.36 no.11
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• pp.119-133
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• 2020

Underground utility tunnel, the most representative cut and cover structure, is subjected to seismic force by displacement of the surrounding soil. In 2020, Korea Infrastructure Safety Corporation has published "Seismic Performance Evaluation Guideline for Existing Utility Tunnel." This paper introduces two seismic evaluation methods, RDM (Response Displacement Method) and RHA (Response History Analysis) adopted in the guide and compares the methods for an example of an existing utility tunnel. The test tunnel had been constructed in 1988 and seismic design was not considered. RDM is performed by single and double cosine methods based on the velocity response spectrum at the base rock. RHA is performed by finite difference analysis that is able to consider nonlinear behavior of soil and structure together in two-dimensional plane strain condition. The utility tunnel shows elastic behavior for RDM, but shows plastic hinge for RHA under the collapse prevention level earthquake.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.59-66
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• 2004

Sand compaction pile (SCP)-improved ground is composite soil which consists of the SCP and the surrounding soft soil. When a surcharge load is applied to composite ground, time-dependent behaviors occur in the composite soil due to consolidation according to radial flow toward the SCP. In addition, stress transfer also takes place between the SCP and the soft soil. This paper presents the numerical results of cylindrical composite ground that was conducted to investigate smear effect on consolidation behaviors of SCP-improved ground. The results showed that the smeared zone of soft clay had a significant effect on effective stress-pore water pressure response, stress transfer mechanism and stress concentration ratio of composite ground. Amount of stress transfer between the clay and the SCP was maximum in depth of z/H=0.25, and decreased with depth. Stress concentration ratio of composite ground was not constant, but depended on consolidation process. It was also found that the value of stress concentration ratio in soft clay with smeared zone was larger than that in soft clay without smeared zone.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.24 no.9
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• pp.15-24
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• 2023

The behavior of buried pipes is directly influenced by the nonlinearity and complex characteristics of the surrounding soil. However, the simplified beam-spring model, which ignores the nonlinearity and complex behavior of soil, is commonly used in practice. In response, several studies have employed continuum analysis methods to account for the nonlinear and complex behavior of the soil. This paper presents various numerical continuum analysis techniques and verifies their comparison with full-scale tests. The study found that reaction force results close to the full-scale test could be obtained by applying contact surface characteristics that take into account the interaction between the ground and the buried pipe. In the case of sharing pipe and soil node method and ignoring the interaction between pipe and soil, excessive reaction force was derived, and the failure shapes were different. In addition, this study applied the dynamic explicit analysis method, ALE method, and CEL method. It was confirmed that the displacement-reaction relationship and failure shape are similar to those of the static analysis.