• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.184-193
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• 1998

In order to dispose radioactive wastes safely, it is needed to understand the mechanical, thermal, fluid behavior of rockmass and physico-chemical interactions between rockmass and water. Also, the knowledge about mechanical and hydraulic properties of rocks is required to predict and to model many conditions of geological structure, underground in-situ stress, folding, hot water interaction, intrusion of magma, plate tectonics etc. This study is based on researches about rock mechanics issues associated with a waste disposal in deep rockmass. This paper includes the mechanical and hydraulic behavior of rocks in varying temperature conditions, thermo-hydro-mechanical coupling analysis in rock mass and deformation behavior of discontinuous rocks. The mechanical properties were measured with Interaken rock mechanics testing systems and hydraulic properties were measured with transient pulse permeability measuring systems. In all results, rock properties were sensitive to temperature variation.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Rock Mechanics Conference
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• 2000.09a
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• pp.105-115
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• 2000

As large underground projects such as radioactive waste disposal, hot water and heat storage, and geothermal energy become influential, the study, which consider all aspects of thermics, hydraulics and mechanics would be needed. Thermo Hydro-Mechanical coupling analysis is one of the most complex numerical technique because it should be implemented with the combined three governing equations to analyze the behavior of rock mass. In this study, finite element code, which is based on Biot's consolidation theory, was developed to analyze the thermo-hydro-mechanical coupling in continuum rock mass. To verify the implemented program, one-dimensional consolidation model under the isothermal and non-isothermal conditions was analyzed and was compared with the analytic solution. The parametric study on two-dimensional consolidation was also performed and the effects of several factors such as poisson's ratio and hydraulic anisotropy on rock mass behavior were investigated. In the future, this program would be revised to be used for analysis of general discontinuous media with incorporating discrete joint model.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.355-365
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• 2000

As large underground projects such as radioactive waste disposal, hot water and heat storage, and geothermal energy become influential, the study, which consider all aspects of thermics, hydraulics and mechanics would be needed. Thermo-Hydro-Mechanical coupling analysis is one of the most complex numerical technique because it should be implemented with the combined three governing equations to analyze the behavior of rock mass. In this study, finite element code, which is based on Biot's consolidation theory, was developed to analyze the thermo-hydro-mechanical coupling in continuum rock mass. To verify the implemented program, one-dimensional consolidation model under the isothermal and non-isothermal conditions was analyzed and was compared with the analytic solution. The parametric study on two-dimensional consolidation was also performed and the effects of several factors such as poisson's ratio and hydraulic anisotropy on rock mass behavior were investigated. In the future, this program would be revised to be used for analysis of general discontinuous media with incorporating discrete joint model.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.1047-1059
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• 2019

This work describes the development of a numerical module with a multiphysics structure to simulate the thermo-hydro-chemo-mechanical behavior of compacted bentonites. First, the conceptual model, based on the state-of-the-art formulation for clay-based engineered barriers in deep geological repositories, is described. Second, the advantages of multiphysics-based modules are highlighted. Then, the guidelines to develop a code using such tools are outlined, presenting an example of implementation. Finally, the simulation of three tests that illustrate the behavior of compacted bentonites assesses the scope of the developed code. The satisfactory results obtained, and the relative simplicity of implementation, show the opportunity of the modeling strategy proposed.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.242-255
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• 2020

The numerical simulations of Heater Experiment-D (HE-D) at the Mont Terri rock laboratory in Switzerland were performed to investigate an applicability of FLAC3D to reproduce the coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) behaviour in Opalinus Clay, as part of the DECOVLEX-2015 project Task B. To investigate the reliability of numerical simulations of the coupled behaviour using FLAC3D code, the simulation results were compared with the observations from the in-situ experiment, such as temperature at 16 sensors, pore pressure at 6 sensors, and strain at 22 measurement points. An anisotropic heat conduction model, fluid flow model, and transversely isotropic elastic model in FLAC3D successfully represented the coupled thermo-hydraulic behaviour in terms of evolution for temperature and pore pressure, however, performance of the models for mechanical behavior is not satisfactory compared with the measured strain.

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2017.05a
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• pp.171-172
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• 2017

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2017.05a
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• pp.213-214
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• 2017

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.38-51
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• 2019

Barcelona Basic Model (BBM) can describe not only swelling owing to decrease in effective stress, but also wetting-induced swelling due to decrease in suction. And the BBM can also consider increase in cohesion and apparent preconsolidation stress with suction, and decrease in the apparent preconsolidation stress with temperature. Therefore, the BBM is widely used all over the world to predict and to analyze coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical behavior of bentonite which is considered as buffer materials at the engineered barrier system in the high-level radioactive waste disposal system. However, the BBM is not well known in Korea, so this paper introduce the BBM to Korean rock engineers and geotechnical engineers. In this study, Modified Cam Clay (MCC) model is introduced before all, because the BBM was first developed as an extension of the MCC model to unsaturated soil conditions. Then, the thermo-elasto-plastic version of the BBM is described in detail.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.446-461
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• 2020

Numerical simulations of CIEMAT column test in Spain are performed to investigate the coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) behavior of MX80 bentonite pellets using TOUGH2-FLAC3D. The heater power and injection pressure of water in the numerical simulations are identical to those in the laboratory test. To investigate the applicability of the thermo-hydraulic (TH) model used in TOUGH2 code to prediction of the coupled TH behavior, the simulation results are compared with the observations of temperature and relative humidity with time. The tendencies of the coupled behavior observed in the test are well represented by the numerical models and the simulator in terms of temperature and relative humidity evolutions. Moreover, the performance of the models for the reproduction and prediction of the coupled TH behavior is globally satisfactory compared with the observations. However, the calculated stress change is relatively small and slow due to the limitations of the simple elastic and swelling pressure model used in numerical simulations. It seems that the two models are insufficient to realistically reproduce the complex coupled THM behavior in the bentonite pellets.

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2019.05a
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• pp.151-152
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• 2019