• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.25-34
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• 2009

Since the particle sizes of the coarse materials used in dam or harbor constructions are much larger than those of typical soils, it is desirable that large shear testing apparatuses are used when performing shear tests on the coarse materials to obtain as accurate results as possible. Two large-scale shear testing apparatuses, large direct shear testing apparatus and large triaxial shear testing apparatus, are commonly used. Currently in Korea, however, there have not been many cases in which shear tests were done using the large apparatus due to mainly difficulties in manufacturing, diffusing, and operating them. In present study, both large direct shear tests and large triaxial shear tests were performed on the coarse materials, which are used as dam fill materials, for 6 test cases in which particle sizes, specimen sizes, vertical pressure (confining pressure) conditions were little different, and then, the shear strength characteristics of the materials were compared with the two different shear tests. The test results showed that, by the Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion, overall the shear strength obtained by the large direct shear tests was larger than that by the large triaxial shear tests. Moreover, the shear strength under the normal stress of 1,000 kPa was about 10 to 70% larger for the large direct shear tests than for the large triaxial shear tests, revealing the larger differences in the coarse materials, compared to typical soils.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.27 no.11
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• pp.71-81
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• 2011

Adfreeze bond strength is a primary design parameter, which determines bearing capacity of pile foundation in frozen ground. It is reported that adfreeze bond strength is influenced by various affecting factors like freezing temperature, confining pressure, characteristics of pile surface, soil type, etc. However, several limited researches have been performed to obtain adfreeze bond strength, for past studies considered only few affecting factors such as freezing temperature and type of pile structures. Therefore, there exists a limitation of estimating the design parameter of pile foundation with various factors in frozen ground. In this study, artificial neural network algorithm was involved to predict adfreeze bond strength with various affecting factors. From past five studies, 137 data for various experimental conditions were collected. It was divided by 100 training data and 37 testing data in random manner. Based on the analysis result, it was found that it is necessary to consider various affecting factors for the prediction of adfreeze bond strength and the prediction with artificial neural network algorithm provides enough reliability. In addition, the result of parametric study showed that temperature and pile type are primary affecting factors for adfreeze bond strength. And it was also shown that vertical stress influences only certain temperature zone, and various soil types and loading speeds might cause the change of evolution trend for adfreeze bond strength.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.12 no.12
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• pp.79-88
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• 2011

Adfreeze bond strength develops upon freezing of pore water within soil and at foundation surface. It has been reported that various factors like temperature, soil type, and pile surface roughness affect adfreeze bond strength. Especially, pile surface roughness has been considered as a primary factor to design pile foundation in frozen ground. It has usually been estimated with fixed correction factors for pile materials. However, even if the pile foundation material is the same, the surface roughness could vary depending on the production circumstances. In this study, laboratory test was carried out to quantitatively analyze the effects of surface roughness on the adfreeze bond strength, and fractal dimension was used as a measure for surface roughness. Test results showed that adfreeze bond strength increased with decreasing temperature, increasing vertical stress and surface roughness. The adfreeze bond strength varies sensitively with surface roughness in the early freezing section of $-2^{\circ}C$, but its sensitivity decreased in the temperature ranging between $-2^{\circ}C$ to $-5^{\circ}C$. The results conclude that the roughness highly affects the frictional resistance of pile surface in frozen ground; however, the roughness does not affect considerably when the temperature drops below about $-2^{\circ}C$.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.5-19
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• 2019

Considering the natural phenomenon in which steep slopes ($65^{\circ}{\sim}85^{\circ}$) consisting of rock mass remain stable for decades, slopes steeper than 1:0.5 (the standard of slope angle for blast rock) may be applied in geotechnical conditions which are similar to those above at the design and initial construction stages. In the process of analysing the stability of a good to fair continuum rock slope that can be designed as a steep slope, a general method of estimating rock mass strength properties from design practice perspective was required. Practical and genealized engineering methods of determining the properties of a rock mass are important for a good continuum rock slope that can be designed as a steep slope. The Genealized Hoek-Brown (H-B) failure criterion and GSI (Geological Strength Index), which were revised and supplemented by Hoek et al. (2002), were assessed as rock mass characterization systems fully taking into account the effects of discontinuities, and were widely utilized as a method for calculating equivalent Mohr-Coulomb shear strength (balancing the areas) according to stress changes. The concept of calculating equivalent M-C shear strength according to the change of confining stress range was proposed, and on a slope, the equivalent shear strength changes sensitively with changes in the maximum confining stress (${{\sigma}^{\prime}}_{3max}$ or normal stress), making it difficult to use it in practical design. In this study, the method of estimating the strength properties (an iso-angle division method) that can be applied universally within the maximum confining stress range for a good to fair continuum rock mass slope is proposed by applying the H-B failure criterion. In order to assess the validity and applicability of the proposed method of estimating the shear strength (A), the rock slope, which is a study object, was selected as the type of rock (igneous, metamorphic, sedimentary) on the steep slope near the existing working design site. It is compared and analyzed with the equivalent M-C shear strength (balancing the areas) proposed by Hoek. The equivalent M-C shear strength of the balancing the areas method and iso-angle division method was estimated using the RocLab program (geotechnical properties calculation software based on the H-B failure criterion (2002)) by using the basic data of the laboratory rock triaxial compression test at the existing working design site and the face mapping of discontinuities on the rock slope of study area. The calculated equivalent M-C shear strength of the balancing the areas method was interlinked to show very large or small cohesion and internal friction angles (generally, greater than $45^{\circ}$). The equivalent M-C shear strength of the iso-angle division is in-between the equivalent M-C shear properties of the balancing the areas, and the internal friction angles show a range of $30^{\circ}$ to $42^{\circ}$. We compared and analyzed the shear strength (A) of the iso-angle division method at the study area with the shear strength (B) of the existing working design site with similar or the same grade RMR each other. The application of the proposed iso-angle division method was indirectly evaluated through the results of the stability analysis (limit equilibrium analysis and finite element analysis) applied with these the strength properties. The difference between A and B of the shear strength is about 10%. LEM results (in wet condition) showed that Fs (A) = 14.08~58.22 (average 32.9) and Fs (B) = 18.39~60.04 (average 32.2), which were similar in accordance with the same rock types. As a result of FEM, displacement (A) = 0.13~0.65 mm (average 0.27 mm) and displacement (B) = 0.14~1.07 mm (average 0.37 mm). Using the GSI and Hoek-Brown failure criterion, the significant result could be identified in the application evaluation. Therefore, the strength properties of rock mass estimated by the iso-angle division method could be applied with practical shear strength.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.29 no.12
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• pp.35-44
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• 2013

In this study, a particle method without using grid was applied for analysing large deformation problems in soil flows instead of using ordinary finite element or finite difference methods. In the particle method, a continuum equation was discretized by various particle interaction models corresponding to differential operators such as gradient, divergence, and Laplacian. Soil behavior changes from solid to liquid state with increasing water content or external load. The Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion was incorporated into the particle method to analyze such three-dimensional soil behavior. The yielding and hardening behavior of soil before failure was analyzed by treating soil as a viscous liquid. First of all, a sand column test without confining pressure and strength was carried out and then a self-standing clay column test with cohesion was carried out. Large deformation from such column tests due to soil yielding or failure was used for verifying the developed particle method. The developed particle method was able to simulate the three-dimensional plastic deformation of soils due to yielding before failure and calculate the variation of normal and shear stresses both in sand and clay columns.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.24 no.12
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• pp.103-111
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• 2008

Soils naturally contain grains of different minerals which may be dissolved under chemical or physical processes. The dissolution leads changes in microstructure of particulate media, such as an increase in local void or permeability, which affects the strength and deformation of soils. This study focuses on the small strain stiffness characteristics of vanishing mixtures, which consist of sand and salt particles at different volume fractions. Experiments are carried out in a conventional oedometer cell (Ko-loading) integrated with bender elements for the measurement of shear waves. Dissolutions of particles are implemented by saturating the mixtures at various confining stresses. Axial deformation and shear waves are recorded after each loading stage and during dissolution process. Experimental results show that after dissolution, the vertical strain and the void ratio increase, while the shear wave velocity and small strain shear modulus decrease. The decrease of the velocity results from the void ratio increase and particle contact decrease. The process monitoring during dissolution of the particles shows that the vertical strain dramatically increases at the beginning of the saturation process and converges after vanishing process finishes, and that the shear wave velocity decreases at the beginning and increases due to the particle reorientation. Specimens prepared by sand and salt particles are proved to be able to provide a valuable insight in macro structural behaviors of the vanishings mixtures.