• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.1-11
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• 2022

A semi-analytical solution to responses of overconsolidated (OC) unsaturated soils surrounding an expanding spherical cavity under constant suction condition is presented. To capture the elastoplastic hydro-mechanical property of OC unsaturated soils, the unified hardening (UH) model for OC unsaturated soil is adopted in corporation with a soil-water characteristic curve (SWCC) and two suction yield surfaces. Taking the specific volume, radial stress, tangential stress and degree of saturation as the four basic unknowns, the problem investigated is formulated by solving a set of first-order ordinary differential equations with the help of an auxiliary variable and an iterative algorithm. The present solution is validated by comparing with available solution based on the modified Cam Clay (MCC) model. Parametric studies reveal that the hydraulic and mechanical responses of spherical cavity expanding in unsaturated soils are not only coupled, but also affected by suction and overconsolidation ratio (OCR) significantly. More importantly, whether hydraulic yield will occur or not depends only on the initial relationship between suction yield stress and suction. The presented solution can be used for calibration of some insitu tests in OC unsaturated soil.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.65-70
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• 2009

Reduction of groundwater surface tension prior to air sparging (SEAS, surfactant-enhanced air sparging) was known to increase air saturation in the aquifer under influence, possibly enhancing the removal rates of volatile contaminants. Although SEAS was known to be efficient for increasing air saturation, little information is available for different hydrogeological settings including soil particle sizes and the depth of aquifer. We investigated water saturations in the sparging influence zone during SEAS using one-dimensional column packed with sands of different particle sizes and different aquifer depths. An anionic surfactant was used to suppress the surface tension of water. Two different sands were used; the air entry pressures of the sands were measured to be $15.0\;cmH_2O$, and $36.3\;cmH_2O$, respectively. No significant difference was observed in the water saturation-surface tension relationship for sands with different particle sizes. As the surface tension decreased, the water saturation decreased to a lowest point and then it increased with further decrease in the surface tension. Both sands reached their lowest water saturations when the surface tension was set approximately at 42 dyne/cm. SEAS was conducted at three different aquifer depths; 41 cm, 81 cm, and 160 cm. Water saturation-surface tension relationship was consistent regardless of the aquifer depth. The size of sparging influence zone during SEAS, measured using two-dimensional model, was found to be similar to the changes in air saturation, measured using one-dimensional model. Considering diverse hydrogeological settings where SEAS to be applied, the results here may provide useful information for designing SEAS process.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.37-44
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• 2008

At low normal stress levels, tensile strength of sand characteristically varies with either saturation or suction of soil in an up-and-down manner with a peak tensile strength that can occur at any degree of saturation. A theory that accurately predicts tensile strength of wet sand was presented in the previous study. In this study, the results of uniaxial tensile, suction-saturation and direct shear tests obtained from three sands (Esperance sand from Seattle, Washington, clean sand from Perth, Australia, and Ottawa sand) are used to validate the proposed theory. The closed form expression of the proposed theory can predict well the experimental data obtained from these sands in terms of the variation patterns of tensile strength over the entire saturation regimes, the magnitude of the tensile strength, its peak value, and the corresponding degree of saturation when the peak strength occurs.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.19 no.10
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• pp.21-26
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• 2018

Soil-water characteristic curve, which is called soil retention curve, is required to explore water flows in unsaturated soils, relative permeability of water in multi-phase fluids flow, and change to stiffness and volume of soils. Thus, the understanding of soil-water characteristic curves of soils help us explore the behavior of soils inclduing fluids. Biopolymers are environmental-friendly materials, which can be completely degraded by microbes and have been believed not to affect the nature. Thus, various biopolymers such as deacetylated power, polyethylene oxide, xanthan gum, alginic acid sodium salt, and polyacrylic acid have been studies for the application to soil remediation, soil improvement, and enhanced oil recovery. PAA (polyacrylic acid) is one of biopolymers, which have shown a great effect in enhanced oil recovery as well as soil remediation because of the improvement of water-flood performance by mobility control. The study on soil-water characteristic curves of sandy soils containing PAA (polyacrylic acid) has been conducted through experimentations and theoretical models. The results show that both capillary entry pressure and residual water saturation dramatically increase according to the increased concentration of PAA (polyacrylic acid). Also, soil-water characteristic curves by theoretical models are quite well consistent with the results by experimental studies. Thus, soil-water characteristic curves of sandy soils containing biopolymers such as PAA (polyacrylic acid) can be estimated using fitting parameters for the theoretical model.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.405-408
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• 2002

The electrical conductivity, EC is a major indicator of soil salinity. Measuring EC of saturation-paste extract of soil, ECe, is the standard way to evaluate soil salinity. However much of the data on soil salinity have been obtained by measuring the EC of the 1:5 soil-to-water extract, EC(1:5) or salts contents(%) which multiplied by conversion factor. And, thus we attempted to collect and analysis 90 soil samples at 9 reclaimed tidelands in Korea and to derive a relationship between ECe and dilution factor at ECe and EC(1:5), $DF_{1:5}$ of 3 soil textural conditions and 6 salinity conditions. Regression equations between ECe and $DF_{1:5}$ were obtained $ECe=1.4701ln(DF_{1:5})+5.0974(r^2=0.97^{**})$ in case of more than 50% silt contents, $ECe=2.1399ln(DF_{1:5})+5.3462 (r^2=0.99^{***})$ in case of below 50% silt contents, and $ECe=1.5927ln(DF_{1:5})+5.2486 (r^2=0.98^{***})$ in all cases, and then we suggested the $DF_{1:5}\;and\;DF_%$ of 3 soil textural conditions and 6 salinity conditions.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.294-299
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• 2007

Natural gypsum has been used as a soil amendment in the United States. However, flue gas desulfurization (FGD)-gypsum has not traditionally been used for agricultural purpose although it has potential benefit as a soil amendment. To expand use of FGD-gypsum for agricultural purpose, the effect of FGD-gypsum on soil chemical properties was investigated in the field scales. Application rates for this study were 0 (control), 1.1, and 2.2 Mg ha-1 of FGD-gypsum. After two year application, the soil samples were taken to 110 cm depth and sub-sampled at 10 cm intervals. The heavy metal contents in FGD-gypsum were lower than ceiling levels allowed by regulations for land-applied biosolids. Soil pH was not largely affected by FGD-gypsum application. Although degree of calcium (Ca) saturation in surface horizons increases only slightly with respect to the control, there is a clear decrease in exchangeable aluminum (Al). FGD-gypsum clearly increases the soil electrical conductivity (EC) with increasing application rate. Water-soluble Ca and sulfate is increased with FGD-gypsum application and these ions moved to a depth of at least 80 cm after only 2 years. We conclude that surface application of FGD-gypsum can mitigate toxicity of Al and deficiency of Ca in subsoil of acid soil.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.277-292
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• 2014

Soil nailing, as an effective stabilizing method for slopes and excavations, has been widely used worldwide. However, the interaction mechanism of a soil nail and the surrounding soil and its influential factors are not well understood. A pullout model using a hyperbolic shear stress-shear strain relationship is proposed to describe the load-deformation behavior of a cement grouted soil nail. Numerical analysis has been conducted to solve the governing equation and the distribution of tensile force along the nail length is investigated through a parametric study. The simulation results are highly consistent with laboratory soil nail pullout test results in the literature, indicating that the proposed model is efficient and accurate. Furthermore, the effects of key parameters, including normal stress, degree of saturation of soil, and surface roughness of soil nail, on the model parameters are studied in detail.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.96 no.5
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• pp.561-566
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• 2007

This study was conducted to clarify runoff production processes in forested catchment through hydrograph separation using three-component mixing model based on the End Member Mixing Analysis (EMMA) model. The study area is located in the coniferous-forested experimental catchment, Gwangneung Gyeonggido near Seoul, Korea (N 37 45', E 127 09'). This catchment is covered by Pinus Korainensis and Abies holophylla planted at stocking rate of 3,000 trees $ha^{-1}$ in 1976. Thinning and pruning were carried out two times in the spring of 1996 and 2004 respectively. We monitored 8 successive events during the periods from June 15 to September 15, 2005. Throughfall, soil water and groundwater were sampled by the bulk sampler. Stream water was sampled every 2-hour through ISCO automatic sampler for 48 hours. The geochemical tracers were determined in the result of principal components analysis. The concentrations of $SO_4{^{2-}$ and $Na^+$ for stream water almost were distributed within the bivariate plot of the end members; throughfall, soil water and groundwater. Average contributions of throughfall, soil water and groundwater on producing stream flow for 8 events were 17%, 25% and 58% respectively. The amount of antecedent precipitation (AAP) plays an important role in determining which end members prevail during the event. It was found that ground water contributed more to produce storm runoff in the event of a small AAP compared with the event of a large AAP. On the other hand, rain water showed opposite tendency to ground water. Rain water in storm runoff may be produced by saturation overland flow occurring in the areas where soil moisture content is near saturation. AAP controls the producing mechanism for storm runoff whether surface or subsurface flow prevails.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.5-11
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• 2018

In conventional analytical solutions for rainfall-induced soil slope stability, the Green-Ampt (1911) equation for estimating the saturation depth and the Skempton & DeLory (1957) equation for calculating the infinite slope shallow failure were compared with the numerical analysis to confirm the error. In the simple evaluation of the reason of soil slope instability due to rainfall using the conventional equations, there are many errors and, overestimation or underestimation of the calculation results. In this study, the equation consisting of the results obtained from infiltration analysis on unsaturated soil slope is proposed by applying the average range of the strength parameters of the granite weathered soils, and its reliability is verified by comparing with the numerical analysis results. The developed equation can be used easily in various fields for the estimation of slope safety factor by checking the rainfall duration and saturation depth.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.155-162
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• 2003

The soil-water characteristic curve (SWCC) represents the essential constitutive relationship for solving various problems in unsaturated soil mechanics. A reliable and convenient experimental method is needed for the determination of the SWCC in engineering applications. This study introduces and proves that the suction-saturation experimental measurement based on the flow pump technique is a convenient and accurate method for obtaining the SWCC. The flow pump technique provides complete control over the test conditions and is capable of detecting all the important elements of the SWCC. In particular, it is capable of defining continuous drying and wetting curves, the moment of air occlusion, and the hysteretic behavior of unsaturated soils. Not only the optimal testing procedure but also the analysis technique for the flow pump technique has been established in this study. Especially, the method of the suction drop measurement was developed to measure the SWCC. This method is a convenient and time saving method without losing accuracy.