• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.33 no.9
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• pp.5-22
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• 2017

The procedure that combines the result of infiltration analysis into stability analysis based on the limit equilibrium method is widely used to evaluate the impact of rainfall infiltration on slope stability. Accurate prediction of rainfall infiltration is essential to the prediction of landslides caused by rainfall, requires to obtain accurate unsaturated hydraulic properties of the soil. Among the unsaturated hydraulic characteristics of the soil, the importance of the soil-water characteristic curve describing the retained water characteristics of the soil is relatively well known and the measurement by test method to obtain the SWCC is gradually increasing. However, it takes a lot of time and expenses to experimentally measure the unsaturated conductivity characteristics of the soil. Therefore, it is common practice to estimate the hydraulic conductivity function from the SWCC. Although it is widely known that the SWCC has a great influence on rainfall infiltration, studies on the effect of the hydraulic conductivity function estimated from the SWCC on rainfall infiltration are very limited. In this study, we explained how the estimation model of the hydraulic conductivity function affects rainfall infiltration and slope stability analysis. To this end, one-dimensional infiltration analysis and slope stability analysis were conducted by using the data on the SWCC of weathered granite soil widely distributed in Korea. The applicability of each estimation model is discussed through review of the analysis results.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.29 no.1C
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• pp.1-9
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• 2009

In this study, the influence of wetting band depth by continuous rainfall and the magnitude of wetting front suction on the stability of slopes in weathered soils were investigated by using finite element programs SEEP/W and SLOPE/W. Three different intensities of rainfall (10mm/hr, 30mm/hr, 50mm/hr) were chosen, and the total duration of rainfall was 96 hours. Three infinite slopes with the inclination of 1:1.5 and 1:1.8, 1:2.0 were considered and the typical properties and the shear strength parameters of the weathered soil were applied. It is shown that rainfall duration plays an important role in slope stability. Based on the analytical results, it is found that as the rainfall duration increases, the wetting band depth also increases. Also, the increasing rate of the wetting band depth was decreased as the soil density was increased. These results come from the decrease of the coefficient of permeability and the increase of the soil suction. Finally, it is also shown that the safety factors of slopes by unsaturated analysis are mostly larger than those by saturated analysis. Therefore, commonly used saturated analysis may substantially underestimate the degree of safety factor in realistic situations.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.51-59
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• 2014

Shallow landslides and debris flows are a common form of soil slope instability in South Korea. These events may be generally initiated as a result of intense rainfall or lengthening rainfall duration because of the effects of climate change. This paper presents the evaluation of rainfall-induced natural soil slope stability and reinforced soil slope instability under vertical load (railway or highway load) throughout South Korea based on quantitative analysis obtained from 58 sites rainfall observatories for 38 years. The slope stability was performed for infinite and geogrid-reinforced soil slopes by taking an average of maximum rainfall every ten years from 1973 to 2010. Seepage analysis is carried out on unsaturated soil slope using the maximum rainfall at each site, and then the factor of safety was calculated by coupled analysis using saturated and unsaturated strength parameters. The contour map of South Korea shows four stages in 10-year-time for the degree of landslide hazard. The safety factor map based on long term observational data will help prevent rainfall-induced soil slope instability for appropriate design of geotechnical structures regarding disaster protection.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2003.03a
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• pp.475-480
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• 2003

Traditionally, the statistical methods analyze the relationship between landslide occurrence and related factors(soil depth, soil strength, slope angle, vegetation, etc.) in GIS technique. However, those methods have no mechanical meaning. Therefore, the deterministic model is suggested in this research. The method analyzes the mechanical equilibrium of a potential slide block and then calculates a slope safety factor. Since this method is able to consider the balance of forces applied to the slope and is a more reasonable method for an individual site. In this research, the spatial data is obtained, managed and analyzed using GIS technique. The infinite slope model is used to evaluate factor of safety and analyze the slope stability.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Hazard Mitigation
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.133-145
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• 2010

This study analyzed the characteristics of sediment produce by landslide triggered by rainfall. One-dimensional unsaturated groundwater model and infinite slope stability analysis were used to estimate the behavior of soil moisture and slope stability according to rainfall, respectively. Slope stability analysis was performed considering on soil depth and characteristics of trees. As the results considering on recovery of the failed slopes, much amount of sediment was produced in 1963, 1970, and 2002. As the results of verification of simulation results using Landsat 5 TM images, we can find differences of landslide location between the results from model and satellite images. These differences can be caused by uncertainties of the rough parameters in the model. However, in the case that Obong-dam basin was divided into two subbasin, Wangsan-chun and Doma-chun basin, the results of each subbasin show errors around 20%. And only 4% of error occurred in the case of comparing landslide area on the entire Obong-dam basin. These errors seem insignificant considering on the errors which can be caused from the analyses in this study such as estimation of sediment produce, soil cover classification, and estimation of landslide area.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.67-74
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• 2014

Recently, the number of road construction is increasing by industrial development. According to this industrial tendency, the number of traffic accidents are consistently increasing due to increasing number of vehicle on the road. This is mainly because traffic accidents are occurred by various parameter such as negligence of driver, vehicle defects, state of unstable road, natural environment etc. Lane department of vehicles from guardrail is occurring frequently. This type of accident is caused by vehicle performance improvement and shape of vehicle, weak guardrail installation and maintenance. Guardrail has the purpose on prevention such as prevention of traffic accident and prevention of deviating out of road, minimizing damage of driver and vehicle by collision as well as entry into the road through guardrail. Stability evaluation test of guardrail verifies the behavior of guardrail through the crash of truck. At this time, the crash condition has 100 km/h of velocity and $15^{\circ}$ of impact angle. In the case of ground condition, filling slope condition has relatively high bearing capacity of infinite ground towards the test. Guardrail is generally installed on road of shoulder in fill slope in korea. It is possible for stability problem to deteriorate ground bearing capacity in Guardrail in fill slope. The existed study towards stability of guardrail has been carried out in the infinite ground. However, the study on the behavior of fill slope with guardrail is not performed by vehicle collision. Therefore, In this study, the numerical analysis using LS-DYNA was executed for verification on behavior of fill slope with guardrail through vehicle collision. This numerical analysis was carried out with change of embedded depth on installed guardrail post in shoulder of fill slope by vehicle collision and 8 tonf truck crash providing at NCAN (National Crash Analysis Center). As the result, displacement and stress on fill slope are decreased in accordance with the increase of embedded depth of guardrail post. Ground bearing capacity is deteriorated at depth of 450 mm form shoulder of road on fill slope.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.57-65
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• 2013

We developed a computer program (CDFlow v. 1.0) to design countermeasures against debris flows in natural terrain. The program can predict the probability of landslides occurring in natural terrain and can estimate the zone of damage caused by a debris flow. It can also be used to design the location and size of countermeasures against the debris flow. The program is run using the ArcGIS Engine, which is one of the most well-known Geographic Information System (GIS) tools for developers. The quasi-dynamic wetness index and the infinite slope stability equation were applied to predict landslide probability as a type of slope safety factor. The calculated safety factor was compared with the required safety factor, and areas of high probable potential for landslides were then selected and represented on the digital map. The volume of debris flow was estimated using these areas of high probable potential for landslides and soil depth. The accumulated volume of debris flow can be calculated along the flow channel. To assess the accuracy of the program, it was applied to a real landslide site at Deoksan-ri, Inje-gun, Kangwon-Province, where four debris barriers have been installed in the watershed of the site. The results of soil tests and a field survey indicate that the program has great potential for estimating probable landslide areas and the trajectory of debris flows. Calculation of the capacity volume of existing debris barriers revealed that they had insufficient capacity to store the calculated amount of debris flow. Therefore, this program enables a rational estimation of the optimal location and size of debris barriers.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.555-571
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• 2023

Due to South Korea's concentrated summer rainfall, constituting 70% of the annual total, landslides frequently occur during the rainy season, necessitating accurate prediction methods to mitigate associated damage. In this study, a reduced-scale and full-scale slope was configured using weathered granite soil to find the possibility of establishing measurement management criterias through landslide reproduction. The experiment focused on matric suction, analyzing changes in ground properties and failure patterns caused by rainfall infiltration. Subsequently, an unsaturated infinite slope stability analysis was conducted. By calculating the failure time when the safety factor falls below 1 for each experiment, landslide prediction was demonstrated to be possible, approximately 17 minutes prior for the reduction-scale experiment and 6.5 hours for the full-scale experiment. These findings provide useful data for establishing Korean soil slope measurement management criteria that consider the characteristics of weathered granite soil.