• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.33 no.11
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• pp.45-57
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• 2017

Temperature change affects consolidation behavior of soft clays. The increase of temperature in soft clays induces the increase of pore water pressure. The dissipation of the excess pore water pressure decreases volume and void ratio. Also, the consolidation rate is accelerated by high temperature which induces the decrease of viscosity of pore fluid. The effects of temperature on the consolidation behavior such as consolidation settlement, consolidation time, and pore water pressure were investigated in this study. A numerical analysis of hydro-mechanical (HM) and thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) behavior was performed. The combination of heat injection and sand drain for consolidating the soft ground, with varying temperature (40 and $60^{\circ}C$) and sand drain diameter (40, 60, and 80 mm), was considered. The results show that the temperature inside soil specimen increases with the increase of the temperature of heating source and the diameter of sand drain. Moreover, the heat injection increases the excess pore water pressure and, accordingly, induces additional settlement in overconsolidated (OC) state and reduces the consolidation time in normally consolidated (NC) state.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.643-654
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• 2018

Tunnel excavation leads to a disturbance on the initial stress balance of surrounding soils, which causes convergences around the tunnel and settlements at the ground surface. Considering the effective impact of settlements on the structures at the surface, it is necessary to estimate them, especially in urban areas. In the present study, ground settlements due to the excavation of East-West Line 7 of the Tehran Metro (EWL7) and the Abuzar tunnels are evaluated and the effect of the lateral earth pressure coefficient ($K_0$) on their extension is investigated. The excavation of the tunnels was performed by TBMs (Tunnel Boring Machines). The coefficient of lateral earth pressure ($K_0$) is one of the most important geotechnical parameters for tunnel design and is greatly influenced by the geological characteristics of the surrounding soil mass along the tunnel route. The real (in-situ) settlements of the ground surface were measured experimentally using leveling methods along the studied tunnels and the results were compared with evaluated settlements obtained from both semi-empirical and numerical methods (using the finite difference software FLAC3D). The comparisons permitted to show that the adopted numerical models can effectively be used to predict settlements induced by a tunnel excavation. Then a numerical parametric study was conducted to show the influence of the $K_0$ values on the ground settlements. Numerical investigations also showed that the shapes of settlement trough of the studied tunnels, in a transverse section, are not similar because of their different diameters and depths of the tunnels.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.129-141
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• 2021

The vacuum preloading method has been used in many countries for soil improvement and land reclamation. However, the treatment time is long and the improvement effect is poor for the straight-line vacuum preloading method. To alleviate such problems, a novel combined air booster and straight-line vacuum preloading method for shallow ground treatment is proposed in this study. Two types of traditional vacuum preloading and combined air booster and straight-line vacuum preloading tests were conducted and monitored in the field. In both tests, the depth of prefabricated vertical drains (PVDs) is 4.5m, the distance between PVDs is 0.8m, and the vacuum preloading time is 60 days. The prominent difference between the two methods is when the preloading time is 45 days, the injection pressure of 250 kPa is adopted for combined air booster and straight-line vacuum preloading test to inject air into the ground. Based on the monitoring data, this paper systematically studied the mechanical parameters, hydraulic conductivity, pore water pressure, settlement and subsoil bearing capacity, as determined by the vane shear strength, to demonstrate that the air-pressurizing system can improve the consolidation. The consolidation time decreased by 15 days, the pore water pressure decreased to 60.49%, and the settlement and vane shear strengths increased by 45.31% and 6.29%, respectively, at the surface. These results demonstrate the validity of the combined air booster and straight-line vacuum preloading method. Compared with the traditional vacuum preloading, the combined air booster and straight-line vacuum preloading method has better reinforcement effect. In addition, an estimation method for evaluating the average degree of consolidation and an empirical formula for evaluating the subsoil bearing capacity are proposed to assist in engineering decision making.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.5-15
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• 2021

The areas consisting of frost susceptible soils in cold regions, such as the Arctic area, have problems of frost heave and thaw settlement due to the seasonal air temperature changes and internal temperature of installed structures. Ground stabilization methods for preventing frost heave and thaw settlement of frost susceptible soils include trenching, backfilling and thermo-syphon. The thermo-syphon is the method in which refrigerant can control the ground temperature by transferring the ground temperature to atmosphere in the from of two-phase flow through the heat circulation of the internal refrigerant. This numerical study applied the function of these thermo-syphon as the boundary condition through user-subroutine coding inside ABAQUS and compared and analyzed the temperature results of laboratory experiments.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.25-40
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• 2022

In this study, 3D coupled-consolidation numerical parametric study was conducted to predict the deformation mechanism of a 20 storey building sitting on (4×4) piled raft (with length of piles, L_p=30 m) to adjacent 6 m diameter (D) tunnelling in stiff clay. The influences of different tunnel locations relative to piles (i.e., z_t/L_p) were investigated in this parametric study. In first case, the tunnel was excavated near the pile shafts with depth of tunnel axis (z_t) of 9 m (i.e., z_t/L_p). In second and third cases, tunnels were driven at z_t of 30 m and 42 m (i.e., z_t/L_p = 1.0 and 1.4), respectively. An advanced hypoplastic clay model (which is capable of taking small-strain stiffness in account) was adopted to capture soil behaviour. The computed results revealed that tunnelling activity adjacent to a building resting on piled raft caused significant settlement, differential settlement, lateral deflection, angular distortion in the building. In addition, substantial bending moment, shear forces and changes in axial load distribution along pile length were induced. The findings from the parametric study revealed that the building and pile responses significantly influenced by tunnel location relative to pile.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.565-577
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• 2022

In this study, a series of three-dimensional numerical parametric study was conducted to investigate deformation mechanisms of an existing box culvert due to an adjacent multi-propped basement excavation in clays. Field measurements from an excavation case history are first used to calibrate a baseline Hardening Soil Small Strain (HS-small) model, which is subsequently adopted for parametric study. Results indicate that the basement-box culvert interaction along the basement centerline can be considered as a plane strain condition when the length of excavation (L) reaches 14 H_e (i.e., final excavation depth). If a plane strain condition (i.e., L/H_e=12.0) is assumed for analyzing the basement-box culvert interaction of a short excavation (i.e., L/H_e=2.0), the maximum settlement and horizontal movement of the box culvert are overestimated significantly by up to 15.7 and 5.1 times, respectively. It is also found that the deformation of box culvert can be greatly affected by the basement excavation if the distance between the box culvert and retaining wall is less than 1.5 H_e. The induced deformation in the box culvert can be dramatically reduced by improving the ground inside the excavation or implementing other precautionary measures. For example, by adding jet grouting columns within the basement and installing an isolation wall behind the retaining structures, the maximum settlements of box culvert are shown to reduce by 37.2% and 13.4%, respectively.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.25 no.11
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• pp.117-130
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• 2009

In this paper, a series of laboratory chamber tests were carried out to evaluate the applicability of a porous concrete pile fabricated with recycled aggregates (RAPP) for the soft ground improvement. While performing the laboratory chamber tests for the RAPP, the surface settlement, excess pore pressure and vertical stress distribution with time were compared with those of SCP provided by You (2003) under the same experimental condition. In addition, the experimental results were compared with the numerical simulation using ABAQUS in this study. The results show that the settlement reduction is significantly enhanced due to the stress-sharing mechanism between the RAPP and soil formation by stress concentration on the RAPP. Furthermore, the comparison of consolidation rate shows that the RAPP can accelerate consolidation as well, which behaves as a vertical drain.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.27-35
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• 2008

Geotechnical characteristic values for reliability-based design were analyzed using domestic marine clays. Analysis results indicate that there were close to mean values in oder of Student/Ovesen, Schneider and EN 1990's approach. However, it was found that the EN 1990's approach is inappropriate far estimating geotechnical characteristic value due to low reliability of estimation results. Four approaches had a trend of evaluating characteristic value conservatively with increasing of soil variability. Also, stability and settlement of breakwater subjected to nominal stress with unimproved soft grounds were computed to investigate the effects of estimated characteristic values. In case of using the Schneider's approach, the ratio of allowable bearing capacity/acting loads suggested 65% of that obtained from using the arithmetic mean approach, and showed underestimated value of 13.6% of the settlement obtained from the latter. The comparison of case designs using a representative value from arithmetic mean approach with the proposed approaches, using characteristic value showed that the former was mostly overestimated.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.24 no.12
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• pp.85-92
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• 2008

It is necessary to develop a rational design method for surface reinforcement of very soft ground because most current design works rely on merely crude empirical correlations. In this paper, the mechanical behavior of very soft ground that is surficially reinforced was investigated with the aid of a series of numerical analyses. Several material properties of each dredged soft ground, reinforcement and backfill sand mat have been exercised in the numerical analysis. The result of numerical analysis was compared with those of the laboratory model test. Through the matching process between the numerical and experimental result, it is possible to determine representative material properties of the dredged soft ground, reinforcements and backfill sand mat. These verified material properties permit to evaluate the effect of the stiffness of reinforcement and the thickness of sand mat on the overall deformation of the reinforced soft ground.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.53-69
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• 2022

In densely built areas, the development of underground transportation systems often involves twin excavations, which are sometimes unavoidably constructed adjacent to existing piled foundations. Because soil stiffness degrades with induced stress release and shear strain during excavation, it is vital to investigate the piled raft responses to subsequent excavation after the first tunnel in a twin-excavation system. The effects of deep excavations on existing piled foundations have been extensively investigated, but the influence of twin excavations on a piled raft is seldom reported in the literature. In this study, three-dimensional numerical analyses were carried out to investigate the influence of sand density on an existing piled raft (with a working load on top of the raft) due to twin excavations. A wide range of relative density (D_r) from loosest (30%), loose to medium (50% and 70%), and densest (90%) were selected to investigate the effects on settlement and load transfer mechanism of the piled raft during twin excavations. An advanced hypoplastic sand model (which can capture small-strain stiffness and stress-state dependent dilatancy of sand) was adopted. The model parameters are calibrated against centrifuge test results in sand reported in the literature. From the computed results, it is found that twin excavations in loose sand (D_r=30%) caused the most significant settlement. This is because of the higher stiffness of denser sand (D_r=90%) than that of loose sand. In contrast, a much larger tilting (maximum magnitude=0.18%) was computed in dense sand than in loose sand after the completion of the first excavation. As far as the load transfer mechanism along the piles is concerned, an upward load transfer to mobilize shaft resistance is observed in loose sand. On the contrary, a downward load transfer is observed in dense sand.