• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.25 no.8
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• pp.33-45
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• 2009

The conventional single-core PBDs have been widely used in order to accelerate consolidation settlement of soft grounds. When using the single-core PBD in a thick clay deposit, a delay of consolidation may occur due to high confining pressure in the thick deposit and necking of drains. This study is to compare the performances of soil improvement by the single-core and double-core PBD installed at a site in Busan New Port which exhibits approximately a 40m-thick clay layer. An in-situ test program was performed at the test site where a set of the double-core PBDs and single-core PBDs were installed to compare the efficiency of each drain. In addition, the discharge capacity of each PBD has been measured using the modified Delft Test. A series of laboratory tests for estimating in-situ soil properties have also been performed in order to obtain input parameters for a numerical program ILLICON. The discharge capacity of the double-core PBD is higher than that of the single-core PBD in the modified Delft Test. However it is observed from the comparative in-situ test and numerical analysis that there is no difference in the performance of ground improvement between the two drain systems. This discrepancy comes from the fact that the amount of water released during consolidation in most common field conditions is much smaller than the capacity of even the single core PBD. And thus, considering actual field conditions, it can be concluded that the single-core PBD has enough discharge capacity even in the thick clay deposit such as this test site.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.35-42
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• 2013

Recently, construction of reinforced earth structure using geosynthetics has been increased because it has advantages such as construction efficient, cost effectiveness and appearance aspect against existing gravity or cantilever retaining wall. However due to the climate change in Korea excessive inflow of ground water and surface water from heavy rainfall could affect the stability of reinforced retaining wall seriously. So the discharge capacity of drains should be evaluated by using experimental method in the design of reinforced earth wall. In this study, instead of concrete block used in most of the retaining wall, eco-friendly porous soilbag was used. This paper describes the test method and result of the laboratory testing for determination of discharge capacity utilizing PBDs.

• Land and Housing Review
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.163-170
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• 2011

Individual Vacuum Pressure Method (IVPM) is a soft ground improvement technique, in which a vacuum pressure can be directly applied to the vertical drain board to promote consolidation and to strengthen the soft ground. This method does not require surcharge loads, different to embankment or pre-loading method. In this study, the ground improvement efficiency of Individual Vacuum Pressure Method was estimated when suction pressure increases step by step(-20, -40, -60, -80kPa) with different periods. During Individual Vacuum Pressure Method process, surface settlement and pore pressure were monitored, and cone resistance as well as water content were also measured after the completion of Individual Vacuum Pressure Method treatment. From the results, optimum duration of each step of vacuum pressure was determined, and the settlement was calculated using FEM numerical analysis.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.28 no.11
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• pp.41-52
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• 2012

Suction drain method can directly apply vacuum pressure to the soft ground through vertical drains so it can make hardening zones around them. These hardening zones make steeply lower the discharge efficiency of the pore water with decreasing permeability. This paper considered a stepped vacuum pressure to minimize a hardening zone which is one of the important parameters that can decrease discharge efficiency. A series of laboratory tests were conducted in order to examine the effect of the hardening zones and to evaluate their effects to the ground improvements with varying durations which applied stepped vacuum pressures(-20kPa, -40kPa, -60kPa and -80kPa) with Busan marine clay. According to strength(CPT), water content test and theoretical investigation indicate a size of the hardening zone within 7cm and the decreasing ratio of permeability about 2.0~4.0. Also, the total settlements are larger for the stepped vacuum pressure than the instant vacuum loading. The application time with vacuum pressure is determined considering the geotechnical properties of the interested clays. Results of numerical analysis show that consolidation behavior is appropriate to measurement for considering hardening zones.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.11-21
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• 2022

In this study, the individual vacuum seepage consolidation method, a new soft ground improvement method, was developed to supplement the conventional suction drain method (individual vacuum preloading method) and the geotechnical behavior was predicted through numerical analysis. If the individual vacuum seepage consolidation method applied, the effect of accelerating settlement and increasing the amount of settlement was high when the aquifer was located in the middle or at the bottom of the layer to the target improvement layer. It was found that the pumping amount in the aquifer does not affect the settlement behavior when it exceeds a certain level. Even vacuum pumping wells were installed in various locations, such as inside or outside of the embankment, the difference in settlement and horizontal displacement was insignificant. In addition, it was predicted that the settlement rate was the fastest and the horizontal displacement (inward) was large when both methods were carried out at the same time. Since this method can reach the target settlement amount very quickly, it was confirmed that it is possible to increase the spacing of vertical drain, thereby securing economic feasibility.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.77-84
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• 2008

The existing equations for radial consolidation cannot account for the changes of well resistance with time and cannot predict the appropriate in-situ consolidation curve. In this study, small cylinder cell tests are performed to evaluate the discharge capacity of PVD. Also, a block sample of 1.2 m in diameter and 2.0 m in height was consolidated to observe the change in the drainage capacity with time for three types of PVD. From the test results on a block sample, the drainage curves normalized with initial drainage of each PVD are similar, regardless of the PVD type and the consolidation curve, which is predicted using solutions of radial consolidation based on the discharge capacity measured in a small cylinder cell tests, significantly overestimates the degree of consolidation. The term of well resistance in the radial consolidation solution was back-calculated to fit the consolidation curve of a large block sample and it is defined as the time dependent well resistance factor, L(t). The L(t) was found to be linearly proportional to the dimensionless time factor, Th. It was also shown that the consolidation curve evaluated by using L(t) provides more accurate prediction than the existing solution.