• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.231-238
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• 2021

BACKGROUND: Metal contamination of farmlands nearby abandoned mines is a serious environmental problem. This study was conducted to evaluate the efficiency of stabilizers on different type of the soils contaminated with metals. METHODS AND RESULTS: The texture of silt loam soil initially contaminated with heavy metal was artificially adjusted to loam and sandy loam by adding sand, and the soil organic matter content (1.5%) was also altered by adding peat to the soils at 3.5 and 8.0%. The soils were mixed with 3% (w/w) of each limestone, dolomite, and steel slag. For the soils with different textures, the bioavailability of As was found to be the lowest in sandy loam compared to others metals such as Cu, Pb, and Zn. The efficacy of limestone and dolomite was not significantly different compared to the soils having different organic matter contents, but the stabilization efficiency of steel slag increased as the soil organic matter content increased. Moreover, stabilizers showed inhibition effect on the uptake of metals to plant. CONCLUSION: The stabilizers were found as effective materials to immobilize metals in soil and to decrease plant uptake of metals. Studies are needed to deeply elucidate the interaction between influencing factors and various stabilizers.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.625-635
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• 2022

High-rise buildings (HRBs) are considered one of the most common structures nowadays due to the population growth, especially in crowded towns. The lack of land in crowded cities has led to the convergence of the HRBs and the absence of any gaps between them, especially in lands with weak soil (e.g., liquefaction-prone soil), but then during earthquakes, these structures may be exposed to the risk of collision between them due to the large increase in the horizontal displacements, which may be destructive in some cases to the one or both of these adjacent buildings. To evaluate methods of reducing the risk of collision between adjacent twin HRBs, this research investigates three vibration control methods to reduce the risk of collision due to five different earthquakes for the case of two adjacent reinforced concrete (RC) twin high-rise buildings of 15 floors height without gap distance between them, founded on raft foundation supported on piles inside a liquefaction-prone soil. Contact pounding elements between the two buildings (distributed at all floor levels and at the raft foundation level) are used to make the impact strength between the two buildings realistic. The mitigation methods investigated are the base isolation, the tuned mass damper (TMD) method (using traditional TMDs), and the pounding tuned mass damper (PTMD) method (using PTMDs connected between the two buildings). The results show that the PTMD method between the two adjacent RC twin high-rise buildings is more efficient than the other two methods in mitigating the earthquake-induced pounding risk.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.24 no.8
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• pp.149-160
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• 2008

Offshore pile foundations are prone to lateral soil pressures resulting from embankment construction for the reclamation on deepwater soft clay. Since the 1990s, offshore reclamation has actively progressed in Korea, connecting with the development of Songdo newtown, Incheon newport, and Busan newport representatively. Special attention has been given to lateral soil-structure interaction problems related to passively-loaded offshore pile foundations. Based on a plane strain large deformation finite element (LDFE) approach, this paper presents the results of investigation into undrained (short-term) and drained (long-term) behavior of passively-loaded offshore pile foundations. This study examines the effects of major factors, such as soil profile, pile head boundary condition, magnitude of embankment load, and average degree of consolidation. The results allowed quantification of differences in the magnitude of lateral soil pressure acting on the piles between undrained and drained phases.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.6C
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• pp.331-338
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• 2008

Soil nailing is used as a method of slope stabilization and excavation support. The design method of soil nail are based on experience or assumption of interaction between soil and reinforcement. Most design methods simply considers the tension of reinforcement for analysis of slope stabilization. Soil nails interact with soils under combined loading of shear and tension. Jewell & Pedley suggested a design equation of shear force with bending stiffness and discussed that the magnitude of the maximum shear force is small in comparison with the maximum axal force. However, they have used a very conservative limiting bearing stress on nails. This paper discusses that the shear strength of soil nails should not be disregarded with proper bearing stresses on nails. The modified FHWA design method was proposed by considering shear forces on nails with bending stiffness.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.401-416
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• 2024

Long-span structures, such as bridges, can experience different seismic excitations at the supports due to spatially variability of ground motion. Regarding current bridge designing codes, it is just EC 2008 that suggested some regulations to consider it and in the other codes almost ignored while based on some previous studies it is found that the effect of mentioned issue could not be neglected. The current study aimed to perform a comprehensive study about the effect of spatially varying ground motions on the dynamic response of a reinforced concrete bridge under asynchronous input motions considering soil-structure interactions. The correlated ground motions were generated by an introduced method that contains all spatially varying components, and imposed on the supports of the finite element model under different load scenarios. Then the obtained results from uniform and non-uniform excitations were compared to each other. In addition, the effect of soil-structure interactions involved and the corresponding results compared to the previous results. Also, to better understand the seismic response of the bridge, the responses caused by pseudo-static components decompose from the total response. Finally, an incremental dynamic analysis was performed to survey the non-linear behavior of the bridge under assumed load scenarios. The outcomes revealed that the local site condition plays an important role and strongly amplifies the responses. Furthermore, it was found that a combination of wave-passage and strong incoherency severely affected the responses of the structure. Moreover, it has been found that the pseudo-static component's contribution increase with increasing incoherent parameters. In addition, regarding the soil condition was considered for the studied bridge, it was found that a combination of spatially varying ground motions and soil-structure interactions effects could make a very destructive scenarios like, pounding and unseating.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.39-46
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• 2024

Artificial recharge systems have been employed to solve drought problems due to global climate change. Despite the increased usage, the applications of artificial recharge systems are limited by clogging problems, which reduce recharge rates. In this study, the soil texture and mineral characteristics of alluvial soil in a planned artificial recharge system area were investigated to evaluate the possibility of chemical clogging during the injection of stream water. The primary minerals contained in the clastic particles are quartz, K-feldspar, plagioclase, and biotite, and the secondary minerals filling the pore space are illite, kaolinite and Fe-oxide. The fact that carbonate and sulfate are observed as secondary minerals in the pore space suggests that chemical clogging has not occurred by the interaction between the groundwater and surface water in the study area. Thus, monitoring soil properties, e.g., the formation and growth of secondary minerals in the pore space, is required to investigate the possibility of chemical clogging in artificial recharge systems.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.553-569
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• 2024

In recent tunneling projects, encounters with multi-layered strata have become more frequent as the desired scale of tunneling increases. Despite substantial practical experience, the design of large-diameter shield-driven tunnels often simplifies the surrounding ground as uniform, overlooking the complexities introduced by non-uniform geotechnical factors. This study comparatively analyzed the influence of design factors, particularly segment stiffness and joint parameters, on segmental lining behavior in layered ground conditions using numerical methods. A comprehensive parametric study revealed the significant impact of deformative interaction between the lining and the soft top soil layer on overall tunnel behavior. Permitting lining deformation in the soft soil layer effectively mitigated the induced internal forces but resulted in considerable tunnel lining convergence, adopting a peanut-shaped appearance. From a practical design perspective, application of a soft segment with lower stiffness near the stiff soil layer is an economically advantageous approach, alleviating internal forces within an acceptable convergence level. Notably, around the interfaces between soil layers with different stiffnesses, the induced internal forces in the lining were minimized based on joint rotational stiffness and location. This indicates the possibility of achieving an optimal design for segmental lining joints under layered ground conditions. Additionally, a preliminary design method was proposed, which sequentially optimizes parameters for joints located near soil layer interfaces. Subsequently, a specialized design based on the proposed method for complex multi-layered strata was compared with a conventional design. The results confirmed that the internal force was effectively relieved at an allowable lining deflection level.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.49-62
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• 2017

In order to understand response of geo-structures to the freezing-thawing process in the ground, it is necessary to consider phase change of the pore water of the ground and also to understand soil interaction with structures. In this study, numerical analysis was carried out for freezing and thawing effect on the modular road system. Neumann's theoretical equation for freezing-thawing processes in porous media can be used to estimate frozen depth and heaving from basic soil properties and ground and surface temperature, but its application is limited to the case for the sediment with fully saturated condition and zero unfrozen water content. Numerical analysis of the modular road system was performed on various soil types and different ground water table as the varying freezing index. The amount of heaving in the silty soil was much larger than those in granite weathered soil or sandy soil, and lowering groundwater level reduced ground heaving induced by freezing. Numerical analysis for temperature history of the ground surface predicted residual heaving near the surface by the freeze-thaw process in silty soil. It ought to reduce stiffness and bearing capacity of the ground so that it will impair stability and serviceability of new road system. However, the amount of residual heaving was insignificant for the road system installed in weathered soil granite and sandy soil. Since modular road system is a pavement structure mounted on the supporting substructure unlike the prevalent road pavement system, strict criteria should be applied for uniform and differential settlement of the pavement system.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.38 no.9
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• pp.5-17
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• 2022

Recently, several studies have been conducted on virtual fixed-point and elastic soil spring methods to simulate the soil-pile interaction in response to spectrum analysis of pile-supported structures. However, the soil spring stiffness has not been properly considered due to the seismic load magnitude, and studies on the response spectrum analysis of pile-supported structures considering this circumstance are inadequate. Therefore, in this study, the response spectrum analysis was performed considering the soil spring stiffness according to the seismic load magnitude, and the dynamic behavior of the pile-supported structure was evaluated by comparing it with existing virtual fixed-point and elastic soil spring methods. Comparing the experiment and analysis, the moment differences occurred up to 117% and 21% in the virtual fixed-point and elastic soil spring models, respectively. Moreover, when the analysis was performed using an API p-y curve considering the soil spring stiffness according to the seismic load magnitude, the moment difference between the experiment and analysis was derived at a maximum of < 4%, and it is the most accurate method to simulate the experimental model response.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.86 no.2
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• pp.177-185
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• 1997

The influences of fertilizer treatment and clones of five willows and one hybrid poplar on above ground and soil carbon (C) accumulations in a willow bioenergy plantation were studied. The aboveground and soil samples were collected in the winter of 1992 and 1993 from the previously established willow plantation at Tully, New York, U.S.A. in 1987. Half of the plots were fertilized annually with 336kg/ha N, 112kg/ha P, and 224kg/ha K. All trees were harvested annually. The most productive clone, willow clone SV1 with fertilization, accumulated 5.4 and 6.8 t/ha/yr aboveground C contents during the sixth(1992) and seventh(1993) growing seasons, respectively. The average percentage of C in bolewood, bolebark, and branches for the five willow clones and one hybrid poplar clone ranged from 51.1 to 57.5, from 54.0 to 55.4, and from 55.6 to 56.5, respectively, among all treatment combinations. Only tyro of the six clones(SA22 and SA2) responded significantly to the addition of fertilizer by increasing the amount of aboveground C accumulated for the 1992 sampling period(clone-by-fertilizer interaction). No fertilization effect, on aboveground C content, was noted for the 1993 sampling period. No significant fertilization effect on soil C accumulation for all soil sampling depths(0-10, 10-20, and 20-40cm) was found in 1992 and 1993 sampling years. Little clone effect on soil C content was found in 1992 and 1993 sampling years, except at 0-10cm soil depth in 1992. The significant clonal effect on soil C content at 0-10cm soil depth could be because of stone content variation rather than clonal effect. The significant clone-by-fertilizer treatment interaction observed requires that evaluation of response to fertilization by willows be made for each clone individually.