• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.599-614
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• 2014

When tunnelling with TBM (Tunnel Boring Machine), accessibility to tunnel face is very limited because tunnel face is mostly occupied by a bunch of machines. Existing techniques that can predict ground condition ahead of TBM tunnel are extremely limited. In this study, the TBM Resistivity Prediction (TRP) system has been developed for predicting anomalous zone ahead of tunnel face utilizing electrical resistivity. The applicability and prediction accuracy of the developed system has been verified by performing field tests at subway tunnel construction site in which an EPB (Earth Pressure Balanced) shield TBM was used for tunnelling work. The TRP system is able to predicts the location, thickness and electrical properties of anomalous zone by performing inverse analysis using measured resistivity of the ground. To make field tests possible, an apparatus was devised to attach electrode to tunnel face through the chamber. The electrode can be advanced from the chamber to the tunnel face to fully touch the ground in front of the tunnel face. In the 1st field test, none of the anomalous zone was predicted, because the rock around the tunnel face has the same resistivity and permittivity with the rock ahead of tunnel face. In the 2nd field test, 5 m thick anomalous zone was predicted with lower permittivity than that of the rock around the tunnel face. The test results match well with the ground condition predicted, respectively, from geophysical exploration, or directly obtained either from drilling boreholes or from daily observed muck condition.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.597-604
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• 2015

When a tunnel is constructed by drilling and blasting operation, the excavated perimeter becomes uneven due to overbreak at the drill holes so that the thickness of shotcrete tends to be irregular. In this case, the conventional stress analyses for tunnel lining of a uniform thickness cannot be readily applicable. In this study, the profile of tunnel perimeter assumed to be sinusoidal in order to simulate the uneven tunnel perimeter and to control the thickness of shotcrete by using the amplitude and wavelength. By adopting the sinusoidal function to a theoretical solution of stress analysis for uniform lining, the range of axial stress of irregular shotcrete can be estimated. The applicability of the approximate solution has been verified by performing a series of numerical analyses for various conditions. It is shown that the axial stress of shorcrete is highly dependent upon the irregularity of shotcrete, together with the ground property and initial stress conditions. It is also shown the shear stress is dependent upon the wavelength, and the stress condition becomes unfavorable where the thickness of shotcrete is relatively small. The approach developed in this study shows that the stress state where the thickness is relatively small is unfavourable, and it is necessary to take complementary measures when installing shotcrete after blasting.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.383-399
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• 2020

Optimizing the spacing of the disc cutter is a key element in the design of the TBM cutter head, which determines the drilling performance of the TBM. The full-scale linear cutting test is known as the most reliable and accurate test for calculating the spacing of the disc cutter, but it has the disadvantage of costly and time-consuming for the full-scale experiment. In this study, through the numerical analysis study based on the discrete element method, the tendency between Specific Energy-S/P ratio according to uniaxial compression strength and penetration depth of rock was analyzed, and the optimum spacing of 17-inch disc cutter was derived. To examine the appropriateness of the numerical analysis model, the rolling force acting on the disc cutter was compared and reviewed with the CSM model. As a result of numerical analysis for the linear cutting test, the rolling force acting on the disc cutter was analyzed to be similar to the rolling force derived from the theoretical formula of the CSM model. From the numerical analysis on 5 UCS cases (50 MPa, 70 MPa, 100 MPa, 150 MPa, 200 MPa), it is found that the range of the optimum spacing of the disc cutter decreases as the rock strength increases. And it can be concluded that 80~100 mm of disc cutter spacing is the optimum range having minimum specific energy regardless of rock strength. This tends to coincide with the optimal spacing of previously reported disk cutters, which underpins the disk cutter spacing calculated through this study.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.19-26
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• 2009

Rammed Aggregate Pier (RAP) method is intermediate foundation between deep and shallow foundation, and it has been built in world wide. RAP represents a relatively new method that has grown steadily over 19 years since Geopier of USA developed this revolutionary method in 1989. The investigation and research in domestic is not accomplished. In this paper, the examined details of different spacing of piles, bearing capacities, respectively, conclude with recommendations on how RAP can be used in future needs. This documentation further provides comparisons of the laboratory test results which were obtained from changing the spacing of piles, namely installed rammed aggregate pier. Laboratory model test was administered in a sand box. Strain control test was conducted to determine the bearing capacities of the piers; 20 mm, 30 mm and 40 mm RAP in diameter using drilling equipment to make holes were installed in sand at initial relative densities of 40%. By comparing different spacing of piles, in this experiment, piles are spaced structually span, form a ring shape, narrowing the distance of each other, to the center. the result shows that as diameter of pier is bigger in diameter, bearing capacity also dramatically increased due to raised stiffness. Also, as the space between each piers was closed, the settlement rate of soil was decreased significantly. From the test results, as the space between each piles were getting closer, it allows greater chances to have more resistance to deformation, and shows more improved stability of structures. After from the verification work which is continuous leads the accumulation of the site measuring data which is various, and bearing capacity and the settlement is a plan where the research will be advanced for optimum installed RAP.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.503-516
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• 2012

Rock mass rating (RMR) is the key factor when designing the appropriate support pattern of tunnel projects. Borehole drilling is usually performed along the tunnel route in order to determine the rock mass rating to be used for tunnel design. The rock mass rating at the non-boring region between boreholes is usually assessed through geophysical surveys such as electrical prospecting, seismic prospecting, etc. Many studies were carried out to find out the correlation between electrical resistivity and rock mass rating. However, most researches were aimed at obtaining the relationship between the two parameters utilizing experimental results obtained from laboratory tests or electrical prospectings. In this paper, efforts were made to analyze and obtain relationships between the electrical resistivity obtained from in-situ electrical resistivity logging data and the rock mass rating. Correlation studies using field data showed that the electrical resistivity is highly correlated with the rock mass rating with the determination coefficient more than 90%. The correlation analysis was also carried out between RMR classification parameters and the electrical resistivity. It was shown that the correlation between the condition of discontinuities and the electrical resistivity was very high with the determination coefficient more than 80%; that between the groundwater condition and the electrical resistivity was very low with the determination coefficient less than 57%.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.637-658
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• 2022

TBM tunnel is simple with the iterative process of excavating the ground, building a segment ring-build, and backfilling. Drill & Blast, a conventional tunnel construction method, is more complicated than the TBM tunnel and has some restrictions because it repeats the inspection, drilling, charging, blasting, ventilation, muck treatment, and installation of support materials. However, the preparation work for excavation requires time and cost based on a very detailed plan compared to Drill & Blasting, which reinforces the ground and forms a tunnel after the formation of tunnel portal. This is because the TBM equipment for excavating the target ground determines the success or failure of the construction. If the TBM, an expensive order-made equipment, is incorrectly configured at the assembly stage, it becomes difficult to excavate from the initial stage as well as the main excavation stage. When the assembled shield TBM equipment is dismantled again, and a situation of re-assembly occurs, it is difficult throughout the construction period due to economic loss as well as time. Therefore, in this study, the layout and plan of the site and the assembly process for each major part of the TBM equipment were reviewed for the assembly of slurry shield TBM to construct the largest diameter road tunnel in domestic passing through the Han River and minimized interference with other processes and the efficiency of cutter head assembly and transport were analyzed and improved to suit the site conditions.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.13-24
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• 2021

Tunnel boring machine (TBM) is widely used for tunnel excavation in hard rock and soft ground. In the perspective of TBM-based tunneling, one of the main challenges is to drive the machine optimally according to varying geological conditions, which could significantly lead to saving highly expensive costs by reducing the total operation time. Generally, drilling investigations are conducted to survey the geological ground before the TBM tunneling. However, it is difficult to provide the precise ground information over the whole tunnel path to operators because it acquires insufficient samples around the path sparsely and irregularly. To overcome this issue, in this study, we proposed a geological type classification system using the TBM operating data recorded in a 5 s sampling rate. We first categorized the various geological conditions (here, we limit to granite) as three geological types (i.e., rock, soil, and mixed type). Then, we applied the preprocessing methods including outlier rejection, normalization, and extracting input features, etc. We adopted a deep neural network (DNN), which has 6 hidden layers, to classify the geological types based on TBM operating data. We evaluated the classification system using the 10-fold cross-validation. Average classification accuracy presents the 75.4% (here, the total number of data were 388,639 samples). Our experimental results still need to improve accuracy but show that geology information classification technique based on TBM operating data could be utilized in the real environment to complement the sparse ground information.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.109-128
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• 2022

The precise inspection for safety and diagnosis (PISD) of tunnel has been conducted by the special act on safety control of public structures. However, the present assessment for the segmental lining of TBM tunnel has limitation such as: NDTs for integrity, segmental configuration for field inspection, and consideration for jacking system. Even if the number of TBM tunnel is less than 1% of enrolled facility in FMS, more attention to maintenance should be necessary due to its usage such as multi-use facility and national important facility. Compared to NATM tunnel, excavated by drilling and blasting and then installed lining by cast-in-place within 6~12 m, TBM tunnel is cut out ground by disk and cutter-bit and then assembled 7 pieces of precast segment, 1.2~1.4 m wide. Different features of design, construction, and maintenance should be considered to be more exact evaluation of TBM tunnel. The characteristics of defect is categorized and analyzed with 11 operational TBM tunnels in domestic subway. To be more comprehend various particular defects, foreign studies have been also adapted. Crack and leakage are categorized in 7 patterns. Breakage/spalling and corrosion are also grouped into 3 patterns. Patterned defects or damages are fed back in design, construction, and are useful guidelines for maintenance stage in future.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.258-276
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• 2018

The accurate and quantitative ground information on the hydraulic conductivity characteristics of rock mass is one of the key factors for evaluation of the hydro-geological behaviour of rock mass around an excavated opening under high water pressure. For tunnel and rock structures in seabed, where the sea acts as an infinite source of water, its importance become greater with increasing construction depth below sea level. In this study, to improve the problems related with poor system configuration and incorrect data acquisition of previous hydraulic packer testing equipment, we newly developed an integrated main frame and 30 bar level waterproof downhole sonde apparatus, which were optimized for deep hydraulic packer test in seabed rock mass. Integration of individual test equipment into one frame allows safe and efficient field testing work on a narrow offshore drilling platform. For the integrated type main frame, it is possible to make precise stepwise control of downhole net injection pressure at intervals of $2.0kg_f/cm^2$ or less with dual hydraulic oil volume controller. To ensure the system performance and the operational stability of the prototype mainframe and downhole sonde apparatus, the field feasibility tests were completed in two research boreholes, and using the developed apparatus, the REV(Representative Elementary Volume) scale deep hydraulic packer tests were successfully carried out at a borehole located in the basalt region, Jeju. In this paper, the characteristics of the new testing apparatus are briefly introduced and also some results from the laboratory and in-situ performance tests are shown.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.1-11
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• 2016

This study deals with the case that was the field application of the microseismic monitoring techniques for the stability monitoring in a domestic mine. The usefulness and limitations of the microseismic techniques were examined through analyzing the microseismic monitored data. The target limestone mine adopted a hybrid room-and-pillar mining method to improve the extraction ratio. The accelerometers were installed in each vertical pillar within the test bed which has the horizontal cross-section $50m{\times}50m$. The measured signals were divided into 4 types; blasting induced signal, drilling induced signal, damage induced signal, and electric noise. The stability analysis was performed based on the measured damage induced signals. After the blasting in the mining section close to the test bed, the damage of the pillar was increased and rockfall near the test bed could be estimated from monitored microseismic data. It was possible to assess the pillar stability from the changes of daily monitored data and the proposed safety criteria from the accumulated monitored data. However, there was a difficulty to determine the 3D microseismic source positions due to the 2D local sensor arrays. Also, it was needed to use real-time monitoring methods in domestic mines. By complementing the problems encountered in the mine application and comparing microseismic monitored data with mining operations, the microseismic monitoring technique can be used as a better safety method.