• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.417-426
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• 2024

Shield tunneling method is widely used to build tunnels in complex geological environment. Stability control of tunnel face is the key to the safety of projects. To improve the excavation efficiency or perform equipment maintenance, the excavation chamber sometimes is not fully filled with support medium, which can reduce the load and increase tunneling speed while easily lead to ground collapse. Due to the high risk of the face failure under non-fully support mode, the tunnel face stability should be carefully evaluated. Whether compressive air is required for compensation and how much air pressure should be provided need to be determined accurately. Based on the upper bound theorem of limit analysis, a non-fully support rotational failure model is developed in this study. The failure mechanism of the model is verified by numerical simulation. It shows that increasing the density of supporting medium could significantly improve the stability of tunnel face while the increase of tunnel diameter would be unfavorable for the face stability. The critical support ratio is used to evaluate the face failure under the nonfully support mode, which could be an important index to determine whether the specific unsupported height could be allowed during shield tunneling. To avoid of face failure under the non-fully support mode, several charts are provided for the assessment of compressed air pressure, which could help engineers to determine the required air pressure for face stability.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.205-215
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• 2018

Strain-based criteria are known as a direct method in determining the stability of the geomechanical structures. In spite of the widely use of Sakurai critical strain criterion, it is so conservative to make use of them in rocks with initial plastic deformation on account of the considerable difference between the failure and critical strains. In this study, a new criterion has been developed on the basis of the failure strain to attain more reasonable results in determining the stability status of the tunnels excavated in the rocks mostly characterized by plastic-elastic/plastic behavior. Firstly, the stress-strain curve was obtained having conducted uniaxial compression strength tests on 91 samples of eight rock types. Then, the initial plastic deformation was omitted making use of axis translation technique and the criterion was presented allowing for the modified secant modulus and by use of the failure strain. The results depicted that the use of failure strain criterion in such rocks not only decreases the conservativeness of the critical strain criterion up to 42%, but also it determines the stability status of the tunnel more accurately.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.101-110
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• 2000

In case heavy rainfall is a key factor of slope failure, the failure zone is usually developed within the depth of 3~5m from the ground surface regardless of the location of the watertable. If rainfall is taken into consideration, it is general that the slope stability analysis is carried out under the assumption that the cut slope is saturated to the slope surface or the watertable elevates to a certain height so that ${\gamma}_{sat}$, the unit weight of saturated soil, is used. However, the analysis method mentioned above can't exactly simulate the variation of pore water pressure in the slope and yields different failure shape. The applicability of slope stability analysis method considering the distribution of pore water pressure within the slope with heavy rainfalls, was checked out after the stability analysis of a lage-scale cut slope in a highway construction site, where surface failure occurred with heavy rainfalls. An appropriate slope stabilization method is proposed on the base of the outcome of the analysis.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.655-667
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• 2018

To evaluate the stability of a rock slope with one pre-exiting vertical crack, this paper performs corresponding probabilistic stability analysis. The existence of cracks is generally ignored in traditional deterministic stability analysis. However, they are widely found in either cohesive soil or rock slopes. The influence of one pre-exiting vertical crack on a rock slope is considered in this study. The safety factor, which is usually adopted to quantity the stability of slopes, is derived through the deterministic computation based on the strength reduction technique. The generalized Hoek-Brown (HB) failure criterion is adopted to characterize the failure of rock masses. Considering high nonlinearity of the limit state function as using nonlinear HB criterion, the multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) is used to accurately approximate the implicit limit state function of a rock slope. Then the MARS is integrated with Monte Carlo simulation to implement reliability analysis, and the influences of distribution types, level of uncertainty, and constants on the probability density functions and failure probability are discussed. It is found that distribution types of random variables have little influence on reliability results. The reliability results are affected by a combination of the uncertainty level and the constants. Finally, a reliability-based design figure is provided to evaluate the safety factor of a slope required for a target failure probability.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.287-297
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• 2020

This paper investigates the stability of a three-dimensional (3D) wedge under the pseudo-static action of an earthquake based on the nonlinear Barton-Bandis (B-B) failure criterion. The influences of the mechanical parameters of the discontinuity surface, the geometric parameters of the wedge and the pseudo-static parameters of the earthquake on the stability of the wedge are analyzed, as well as the sensitivity of these parameters. Moreover, a stereographic projection is used to evaluate the influence of pseudo-static direction on instability mode. The parametric analyses show that the stability coefficient and the instability mode of the wedge depend on the mechanical parameter of the rock mass, the geometric form of the wedge and the pseudo-static state of the earthquake. The friction angle of the rock φ_b, the roughness coefficient of the structure surface JRC and the two angles related to strikes of the joints θ₁ and θ₂ are sensitive to stability. Furthermore, the sensitivity of wedge height h, the compressive strength of the rock at the fracture surface JCS and the slope angle α to the stability are insignificant.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 1998.05a
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• pp.3-34
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• 1998

The stability condition of rock slopes is greatly affected by the geometry and strength parameters of discontinuities in the rock masses. Rock slopes Involving movement of rock blocks on discontinuities are failed by one or combination of the three basic failure modes-plane, wedge, and toppling. In rock mechanics, practically all the parameters such as the joint set characteristics, the rock strength properties, and the loading conditions are always subject to a degree of uncertainty. Therefore, a reasonable assessment of the rock slope stability has to include the excavation of the multi-failure modes, the consideration of uncertainties of discontinuity characteristics, and the decision on stabilization measures with favorable cost conditions. This study was performed to provide a new numerical model of the deterministic analysis, reliability analysis, and reliability-based optimization for rock slope stability. The sensitivity analysis was carried out to verify proposed method and developed program; the parameters needed for sensitivity analysis are design variables, the variability of discontinuity properties (orientation and strength of discontinuities), the loading conditions, and rock slope geometry properties. The design variables to be optimized by the reliability-based optimization include the cutting angle, the support pressure, and the slope direction. The variability in orientations and friction angle of discontinuities, which can not be considered in the deterministic analysis, has a greatly influenced on the rock slope stability. The stability of rock slopes considering three basic failure modes is more influenced by the selection of slope direction than any other design variables. When either plane or wedge failure is dominant, the support system is more useful than the excavation as a stabilization method. However, the excavation method is more suitable when toppling failure is dominant. The case study shows that the developed reliability-based optimization model can reasonably assess the stability of rock slopes and reduce the construction cost.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.511-524
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• 2020

Advancements in materialistic life styles and increasing awareness about adverse climatic changes and its negative effects on human life have been the driving force of finding new and clean sources of energy. Wind power has become technologically mature and commercially acceptable on global scale. However, fossil fuels have been the major sources of energy in most countries, renewable energy (particularly wind) is now booming worldwide. To cope with this wind energy technology, various related aspects have to be understood by the scientific, engineering, utility, and contracting communities. This study is an effort towards the understanding of the (i) wind turbine blade and tower structural stability issues, (ii) turbine blade and tower failures and remedial measures, (iii) weather and seismic effects on turbine blade and tower failures, (iv) gear box failures, and (v) turbine blade and tower failure analysis tools.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.391-414
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• 2015

In this paper, stabilities of a plane slide rock slope under different hydraulic distributions were studied based on the nonlinear Barton-Bandis (B-B) failure criterion. The influence of various parameters on the stability of rock slopes was analyzed. Parametric analysis indicated that studying the factor of safety (FS) of planar slide rock slopes using the B-B failure criterion is both simple and effective and that the effects of the basic friction angle of the joint (${\varphi}_b$), the joint roughness coefficient (JRC), and the joint compressive strength (JCS) on the FS of a planar slide rock slope are significant. Qualitatively, the influence of the JCS on the FS of a slope is small, whereas the influences of the ${\varphi}_b$ and the JRC are significant. The FS of the rock slope decreases as the water in a tension crack becomes deeper. This trend is more significant when the flow outlet is blocked, a situation that is particularly prevalent in regions with permafrost or seasonal frozen soil. Finally, the work is extended to study the reliability of the slope against plane failure according to the uncertainty from physical and mechanics parameters.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.513-520
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• 2002

The stability analysis of rock slope can be predicted using a suitable field data but it cannot be predicted unless suitable field data was taken. In this study, artificial neural networks theory is applied to predict plane failure that has a few data. It is well known that human brain has the advantage of handling disperse and parallel distributed data efficiently. On the basis of this fact, artificial neural networks theory was developed and has been applied to various fields of science successfully In this study, error back-propagation algorithm that is one of the teaching techniques of artificial neural networks is applied to predict plane failure. In order to verify the applicability of this model, a total of 30 field data results are used. These data are used for training the artificial neural network model and compared between the predicted and the measured. The simulation results show the potentiality of utilizing the neural networks for effective safety factor prediction of plane failure. In conclusion, the well-trained artificial neural network model could be applied to predict the plane failure stability of rock slope.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2000.11a
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• pp.135-142
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• 2000

A framework alternative to that of classical slope stability analysis is developed, wherein the soil mass is treated as a continuum and in situ soil stresses and strengths are computed accurately using inelastic finite element methods with general constitutive models. Within this framework, two alternative methods of stability analysis are presented. In the first, the strength characteristics of the soil mass are held constant, and the gravitational loading on the slope system is increased until failure is initiated by well-defined mechanisms. In the second approach, the gravity loading on the slope system is held constant, while the strength parameters of the slope mass are gradually decreased until well-defined failure mechanisms developed. Details on the applying both of the proposed methods, and comparisons of their characteristics on a number of solved example problems are presented.