• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.27-33
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• 2000

Stone columns is ground improvement method which is composed of compacted gravel or crushed stone inserted into the soft ground consisting of loose sand and clay by replacement method. Generally stone columns are constructed in silty clay, above 70% replacement rate for increasing the bearing capacity and shear strength. Low replacement stone columns method is limited below 30% at replacement rate-premising strength increase of clay ground is estimated efficiently. This study, laboratory model tests were conducted to investigate the consolidation drainage promotion and shear strength increase effect in soft ground with replacement rate by stone columns. The settlement reduction effect and settlement reduction coefficients increase with increasing the replacement rate in composite ground. The results of model tests indicate that consolidation promotion effect is proved. The increasing strength of composite ground was verified by vane shear tests.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.275-281
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• 2012

Thermal distribution in soils must be considered in engineering designs and constructions, including estimates of frost heave and thaw settlement, infrastructure in cold regions, and geothermal systems. Because thermal conductivity is a key parameter for evaluation of thermal distribution in soils, it must be accurately estimated. The thermal conductivity of fine-grained soils has been widely studied in recent years; however, few studies have reported a reliable method for experimental measurement. The present study presents the results of an experimental investigation of the thermal conductivity of a saturated kaolinite-silica mixture with respect to the variation of dry density. Thermal conductivities were measured in Constant Rate of Strain (CRS) consolidation tests, and the experimental data were analyzed to evaluate the accuracy of the new measurement system. In addition, we present an evaluation method for predicting thermal conductivity in fine-grained soils.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.33-39
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• 2013

A drilling exploration in deep sea is being processed to develop new energy resource in the world. In 2007, the presence of the gas hydrate had been confirmed during the UBGH1 (Ulleung Basin Gas Hydrate Expedition 1) in the Ulleung Basin. Geotechnical properties of the deep marine sediment are important factors for assessing the safety of gas production facility and productivity from the hydrate bearing sediment. In this study, comprehensive laboratory tests are conducted to investigate the geotechnical engineering characteristics of the deep marine sediments recovered from the hydrate occurrence regions during the UBGH2 (Ulleung Basin Gas Hydrate Expedition 2) in the Ulleung Basin, East Sea, Korea. The index properties of the specimens including the specific gravity, atterberg limits, specific surface, and particle size distribution are measured, and these are compared to the results reported by previous studies. A zero-lateral strain cell, which houses bender elements, is used to determine stress-dependant characteristics and shear wave velocities with the vertical effective stresses. Furthermore, the hydraulic conductivity is calculated based on the consolidation test results.

• Proceedings of the KAIS Fall Conference
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• 2009.12a
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• pp.871-873
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• 2009

기존의 연직 배수공법은 통수능의 저하, 막힘현상(clogging) 등으로 인하여 연약지반의 압밀을 지연시키는 문제점을 가지고 있다. 이 연구에서는 고분자 압전소자인 PVDF(polyvinylidene fluoride)를 연직배수공법에 적용하여 연직배수공법의 기존 문제점을 극복하고 연약지반의 간극수를 빠르게 소산시킴으로서 압밀을 촉진 시킬 수 있을 것이라 판단되어 이에 따른 실내 실험을 수행하였다. 실험 결과 PVDF를 적용한 경우에서 그렇지 않은 경우보다 간극수의 배출량이 증가하여 PVDF의 적용으로 배수재의 성능이 향상됨을 알 수 있었다.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.27-33
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• 2007

The vertical drain method recently being used in Korea is one of the popular soft ground improvement methods, and it is divided into the sand drain method, the pack drain method, the paper drain method, and the PBD method according to the drainage. However, these methods generate the disturbed zone called the smear zone when the drainage is penetrated into the in-situ ground. The characteristics of the smear zone generated cause the problems that the coefficient of permeability decreases, and then the consolidation time in the design becomes longer than expected. Even though the coefficient of horizontal consolidation and the coefficient of permeability in the smear zone are very important design factors directly influencing the degree of consolidation, in the existing studies, these coefficients have been empirically derived by the coefficient of vertical consolidation and used for the design. However, in case that these coefficients derived by the coefficient of vertical consolidation are applied to the actual design, a loss of the duration of construction and a loss of economical efficiency can be happened because of the inaccuracy of the coefficient of horizontal consolidation and the coefficient of permeability. Hence, in this study, in order to understand such influence, the laboratory test was carried out so as to reasonably determine the coefficient of permeability and the coefficient of consolidation in diverse ground conditions. Then, the range of smear effect on clay and silt was estimated with monitoring data through the laboratory test.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.29 no.3C
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• pp.115-125
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• 2009

The preconsolidation pressure has been commonly determined by oedometer test. However, it can also be determined by insitu test, such as piezocone test with theoretical and(or) empirical correlations. Recently, Neural Network (NN) theory was applied and some models were proposed to estimate the preconsolidation pressure or OCR. It was already found that NN model can come over the site dependency and prediction accuracy is greatly improved when compared with present theoretical and empirical models. However, since the optimization process of synaptic weights of NN model is dependent on the initial synaptic weights, NN models which are trained with different initial weights can't avoid the variability on prediction result for new database even though they have same structure and use same transfer function. In this study, Committee Neural Network (CNN) model is proposed to improve the initial weight dependency of multi-layered neural network model on the prediction of preconsolidation pressure of soft clay from piezocone test result. Prediction results of CNN model are compared with those of conventional empirical and theoretical models and multi-layered neural network model, which has the optimized structure. It was found that even though the NN model has the optimized structure for given training data set, it still has the initial weight dependency, while the proposed CNN model can improve the initial weight dependency of the NN model and provide a consistent and precise inference result than existing NN models.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.6C
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• pp.321-329
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• 2008

In this study, a series of column test as a way in order to make up for the weakness point of the conventional acceleration method were conducted to both propose the suction board drain method and grapes the specific improvement character of this method as a result of a sort of plastic drain board and a phase of vacuum pressure conditions. On this occasion, the study focused on computing the effective factors of the fittest Suction board drain method affected by each condition through confirming the settlement generated during the test, the water content reduction and stress increase effect occurred arising from the test, and the ratio of consolidation related to the improvement period. In accordance with the shape of core and that whether the core is attached to the filter(pocket or adhesion), the castle type of adhesion and the column type of pocket are more efficient than the others as a consequence of the test to find out the improvement effect depending on each drainage such as a castle type, coil type, harmonica type, column type of pocket and a castle of the adhesion. In case of the step suction pressure, the shorter the period of $-0.8\;kg/cm^2$ as a final step of the suction pressure is, the better the improvement is. In addition, the correlation between degree of consolidation per each suction pressure level and duration of application was drawn as a curve and the point of inflection on this curve was provided to determine the duration period to maximize the consolidation.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.53-58
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• 2015

The Pre-loading method has been widely used for the soft ground stabilization but long construction times and the transport of large quantities of fill material are required. To shorten the construction periods, the vertical drain method is generally applied simultaneously. But the high costs of the fill materials along with environmental damages remain as the main difficulties to apply this method. Therefore, a complimentary way to reduce both the height of the embankment and the consolidation time is needed. In this study, the electro-osmosis method, which is able to shorten the consolidation time and minimize the damage of the environment, was performed with a model test. The results show that as the voltage increases the consolidation settlements, consolidation drainage and shear strength also increase while the water content decreases.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.33-40
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• 2015

In the correlation formulas related to consolidation proposed at present, the analyzed areas are limited to certain overseas or domestic areas and in order to increase the number of data, experimental data of different areas are integrated and therefore in many cases application is difficult. In addition, models have been developed without clear statistic evaluation of the obtained data. Accordingly, this study divided the soft areas of the west coast into Hangang, Kumgang and Yeongsangang in order to maximally reduce uncertainty of the experimental data and performed normality test and regression analysis on the physical and dynamic characteristics. According to the analysis result, the compression index and the modified compression index had strong linearity and in all areas modified compression index and initial void ratio had closest correlation, followed by total unit weight, water contents and liquid limits. As for overconsolidation ratio with depth, the width of overconsolidation ratio was large when the depth was less than 5 to 6 m in all areas and when the depth was over 5 to 6 m, the ratio was constant.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.23-29
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• 2003

In this paper, effects of the acidification of ground and the chemical additive materials-ferric oxide, calcium chloride and calcium sulphate on the compressibility characteristics of the marine clay treated with quick lime were investigated. The rapid inflection point method was carried out. Results showed that the compression index of the untreated marine clay increased as the pH of pore water decreased. Also, the preconsolidation pressure, the coefficient of consolidation and the coefficient of permeability of the untreated marine clay decreased with pH of pore water. In the case of the marine clay treated with the quick lime-calcium chloride, the compression index decreased and the coefficient of consolidation and the coefficient of permeability increased. Specially, the preconsolidation pressure of sample treated with the quick lime-ferric oxide was higher than that of another samples.