• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.115-129
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• 2015

The cut-slope of a large-sectional tunnel portal is recognized as a potential area of weakness due to unstable stress distribution and possible permanent displacement. This paper presents a case study of a slope failure and remediation for a large-scale cut-slope at a tunnel portal. Extensive rock-slope brittle failure occurred along discontinuities in the rock mass after 46 mm of rainfall, which caused instability of the upper part of the cut-slope. Based on a geological survey and face mapping, the reason for failure is believed to be the presence of thin clay fill in discontinuities in the weathered rock mass and consequent saturationinduced joint weakening. The granite-gneiss rock mass has a high content of alkali-feldspar, indicating a vulnerability to weathering. Immediately before the slope failure, a sharp increase in displacement rate was indicated by settlement-time histories, and this observation can contribute to the safety management criteria for slope stability. In this case study, emergency remediation was performed to prevent further hazard and to facilitate reconstruction, and counterweight fill and concrete filling of voids were successfully applied. For ultimate remediation, the grid anchor-blocks were used for slope stabilization, and additional rock bolts and grouting were applied inside the tunnel. Limit-equilibrium slope stability analysis and analyses of strereographic projections confirmed the instability of the original slope and the effectiveness of reinforcing methods. After the application of reinforcing measures, instrumental monitoring indicated that the slope and the tunnel remained stable. This case study is expected to serve as a valuable reference for similar engineering cases of large-sectional slope stability.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.293-308
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• 2012

The shear behavior at the particle/surface interface such as rock joint can determine the mechanical behavior of whole structure. Therefore, a fundamental understanding of the mechanisms governing its behavior and accurately estimation of the interface strength is essential. In this paper, PFC, a numerical analysis program of discrete element method was used to investigate the effects of the surface roughness on interface strength. The surface roughness was characterized by smooth, intermediate, and rough surface, respectively. In order to investigate the effects of particle shape and crushing on particle/surface interface behavior, one ball, clump, and cluster models were created and their results were compared. The shape of particle was characterized by circle, triangle, square, and rectangle, respectively. The results showed that as the surface roughness increases, interface strength and friction angle increase and the void ratio increases. The one ball model with smooth surface shows lower interface strength and friction angle than the clump model with irregular surface. In addition, a cluster model has less interface strength and friction angle than the clump model. The failure envelope of the cluster model shows non-linear characteristic. From these findings, it is verified that the surface roughness and particle shape effect on the particle/surface interface shear behavior.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.321-336
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• 2012

The shear behavior at the particle/surface interface such as rock joint can determine the mechanical behavior of whole structure. Therefore, a fundamental understanding of the mechanisms governing its behavior and accurately estimation of the interface strength is essential. In this paper, PFC, a numerical analysis program of discrete element method was used to investigate the effects of the surface roughness crushing on interface strength. The surface roughness was characterized by smooth, intermediate, and rough surface, respectively. Particle shape was classified into one ball model of circular shape and 3 ball model of triangular shape. The surface shape was modelled by wall model of non-crushing surface and ball model of crushing surface. The results showed that as the bonding strength of ball model decreases, lower interface strength is induced. After the surface roughness crushing was occurred, the interface strength tended to converge and higher bonding strength induced lower surface roughness crushing. Higher friction angle was induced in wall model and higher surface roughness induced the higher friction angle. From these findings, it is verified that the surface roughness and surface roughness crushing effect on the particle/surface interface shear behavior.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.23-35
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• 2012

Due to the convenience, RMR has been widely applied in civil engineering works such as tunnel, slope, and so on. Many researchers have studied to suggest more simple and trustable RMR by modifying its parameters. However, those researches have just focused on looking for easy modified-RMRs by reducing number of parameters using various statistical analyses. Therefore, this research studied questions of modified-RMRs and gaps between RMR and its parameters. Approximately 2,000 parameters of 400 RMRs from various tunnel sites were normalized respectively and compared with one another to study their relations and divergences. The comparison results showed that there were common patterns among RMR and parameters. Data of uniaxial compressive strength and RQD, qualitative parameters, were located in upper side of RMR line. Discontinuity condition and ground water, quantitative oriented parameters, were opposite to them. It means if both qualitative and quantitative parameters can be properly combined then it can be easy to make simple and easy modified-RMRs without using difficult statistics. This results also show that the majority of field engineers used to estimate RMR conservatively when they did quantitative oriented parameters.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.151-160
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• 2003

The stability of the designed rock slope is analysed based on two kinds of shear strength model. Besides the deterministic analysis, a probabilistic approach on Monte Carlo simulation is proposed to deal with the uncertain characteristics of the discontinuity and the results obtained from two models are compared to each other. To carry out the research of characteristics of the discontinuity, BIPS, DOM Scanline survey data and direct shear test data are used, and chi-square test is used for determining the probability distribution function. The rock slope is evaluated to be stable in the deterministic analysis, but in the probabilistic analysis, the probability of failure is more than 5%, so, it is considered that the rock slope is unstable. In the shear strength models, the probability of the failure based on the Mohr-Coulomb model(linear model) is higher than that of the Barton model. It is supported by the fact that the Mohr-Coulomb model is more sensitive to block size than the Barton model. In fact, there is no reliable way to estimate the unit cohesion of the Mohr-Coulomb model except f3r back analysis and in the case of small block failure in the slope, Mohr-Coulomb model may excessively evaluate the factor of the safety. So, the Barton model of which parameters are easily acquired using the geological survey is more reasonable for the stability of the studied slope. Also, the selection of the proper shear strength model is an important factor for slope failure analysis.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.30 no.12
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• pp.15-25
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• 2014

In this study, types of rock slope failure are analyzed by considering both joint characteristics investigated on previous landslide regions located at northern part of Mt. Jiri and geographic features of natural slopes deduced from GIS. The landslide prediction map was produced by superposing the frequency ratio layers for the six geographic features including elevation, slope aspect, slope angle, shaded relief, curvature and stream distance, and then the landslide risk map was deduced by combination of the prediction map and the damage map obtained by taking account of humanity factors such as roads and buildings in the study area. According to analysis on geographic features for previous landslide regions, the landslides occurred as following rate: 88% at 330~710 m in elevation, 77.7% at $90{\sim}270^{\circ}$ in slope aspect, 93.9% at $10{\sim}40^{\circ}$ in slope angle, 82.78% at grade3~7 in shaded relief, 86.28% at -5~+5 in curvature, and 82.92% within 400m in stream distance. Approximately 75% of the landslide regions belongs to the region of 'high' or 'very high' grade in the prediction map, and 13.27% of the study area is exposed to 'high risk' of landslide.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.11 no.8
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• pp.83-93
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to present emergency rehabilitation, cause and the countermeasure of reinforcement about reinforced retaining wall and the slope collapse of the phyllite ground. The study area is broken easily because this area has rock mass discontinuity such as stratification, foliation, joint and fold. And this area consists of the ground where it happens easily to the failure of structure like reinforced retaining wall because of the phyllite ground sensitive to weathering. Counterweight fill in front of reinforced retaining wall was performed as emergency rehabilitation about displacement of reinforced retaining wall and the failure at the rear of slope on phyllite ground. After that, additional displacement didn't occur. Boring and geophysical exploration were launched to present emergency rehabilitation and develop the long-term method of reinforcement. This could grasp anticipated range of the failure section and identify internal and external factors of the cause of the slope collapse. Several methods of reinforcement were suggested by conducting the numerical analysis. When conducting design and construction of major structures at the ground which has complex discontinuities, the precise site investigation should be conducted. During construction, immediate action for over-displacement should be taken by performing the periodic measurement.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.167-174
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• 2004

This paper is to introduce an article published in Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering, 2003. In this research, a fracture mechanics model is developed to illustrate the importance of time-dependence far brittle fractured rock. In particular a model is developed fer the time-dependent degradation of rock joint cohesion. Degradation of joint cohesion is modeled as the time-dependent breaking of intact patches or rock bridges along the joint surface. A fracture mechanics model is developed utilizing subcritical crack growth, which results in a closed-form solution for joint cohesion as a function of time. As an example, a rock block containing rock bridges subjected to plane sliding is analyzed. The cohesion is found to continually decrease, at first slowly and then more rapidly. At a particular value of time the cohesion reduces to value that results in slope instability. A second example is given where variations in some of the material parameters are assumed. A probabilistic slope analysis is conducted, and the probability of failure as a function of time is predicted. The probability of failure is found to increase with time, from an initial value of 5% to a value at 100 years of over 40%. These examples show the importance of being able to predict the time-dependent behavior of a rock mass containing discontinuities, even for relatively short-term rock structures.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.371-379
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• 2008

In this study, seismic elastic wave and dynamic elastic modulus properties are investigated by down-hole seismic tests that were applied to the 11 gneiss area. The research results show that the realtionship between the two properties are $V_s=0.5589{\times}V_p$ in gneiss. The relationship between the two properties are separated into two groups. Group 1 is influenced mainly by the specific gravity of rock, but group 2 is influenced mainly by the joint aperture. As weathering progresses, group 1 clearly shows a decreasing tendency. In fresh and slightly weathered rock-mass, correlations between $V_p$ and dynamic elastic modulus is expressed in linear line but in moderately-highly weathered rock-mass, correlations between $V_p$ and dynamic elastic modulus is expressed curve as a quadratic function. Correlations between $V_s$ and dynamic elastic modulus are analyzed similar with a $V_p$ case.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.52 no.3
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• pp.231-241
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• 2019

Kinematic analysis determines the stability of rock slope by analyzing the relationship between the slope face orientation and the discontinuity orientation. In this study, terrestrial LiDAR was used to obtain a large amount of discontinuity orientation data and then, the probabilistic characteristics of the orientation data obtained using terrestrial LiDAR were analyzed. Subsequently, the probabilistic kinematic analysis was carried out using the discontinuity orientations generated randomly from Fisher function in Monte Carlo simulation. In addition, the probabilistic kinematic analysis was also performed using the actual orientation data obtained from the terrestrial LiDAR to compare their results. Consequently, the results of both probabilistic analyses showed similar results. Therefore, if sufficient orientation data are provided by other means such as terrestrial LiDAR, the probabilistic analysis will show reasonable results using the actual field data without randomly generating orientation data. In addition, the deterministic kinematic analysis was also carried out using representative orientation of discontinuity sets. The analysis result of the probabilistic analysis showed similar results with the deterministic analysis because the dispersion of the discontinuity orientations in a joint set is not large.