• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.52-63
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• 2003

Discontinuities such as faults, fractures and joints in rock mass play the dominant role in the mechanical and hydraulic properties of the rock mass. The key factors that influence on the flow of groundwater are hydraulic and geometric characteristics of discontinuities and their connectivity. In this study, a program that analyzes groundwater flow in the 3D discontinuity network was developed on the assumption that the discontinuity characteristics such as density, trace length, orientation and aperture have particular distribution functions. This program generates discontinuities in a three-dimensional space and analyzes their connectivity and groundwater flow. Due to the limited computing capacity In this study, REV was not exactly determined, but it was inferred to be greater than 25$\times$25$\times$25 ㎥. By calculating the extent of aperture that influences on the groundwater flow, it was found that the discontinuities with the aperture smaller than 30% of the mean aperture had little influence on the groundwater flow. In addition, there was little difference in the equivalent hydraulic conductivity for the the two cases when considering and not considering the boundary effect. It was because the groundwater flow was mostly influenced by the discontinuities with large aperture. Among the parameters considered in this study, the length, aperture, and orientation of discontinuities had the greatest influence on the equivalent hydraulic conductivity of rock mass in their order. In case of existence of a fault in rock mass, elements of the equivalent hydraulic conductivity tensor parallel to the fault fairly increased in their magnitude but those perpendicular to the fault were increased in a very small amount at the first stage and then converged.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.331-341
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• 2012

Granitoid rocks are generally high-quality rock from a geotechnical perspective, because they rarely contain systematic joints or fragmented fault zones. Although the rock type at the Sanhak site is granite, a collapsed slope has a deep soil layer and shows no residual structures such as discontinuities or faults; surface avalanches from this slope can be observed in several places. To study the stability of this slope, we investigated rainfall duration, variation in pore-water pressure, and the factor of safety considering three cases (current cross-section, initial planning cross-section, revised planning cross-section). With increasing duration of rainfall, the groundwater level rises, up to 20 m in height from ground surface. In the initial planning cross-section, safety was secure for rainfall of 2 days duration, but inadequate for rainfall of 4 days duration. In the revised planning cross-section, however, safety factors were secure for rainfall of 4 days duration. Therefore, to ensure permanent stability at the Sanhak site, a slope degree of 1:1.8 should be maintained during cutting.

• 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 the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.16 no.7
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• pp.35-42
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• 2015

Grouting method has been widely used for the ground improvement and stabilization: mostly to block or control the ground water in the early years and to improve the ground, repair the structure in recent years, ever increasing its use. Despite many advantages so far, the existing grouting method also has some shortcomings including uncertain permeation of grouting with gravity type if the voids between the soil particles are narrow, and problems due to the relaxation of the neighboring ground when injected using injection pressure. As an alternative, a vibration injection method with constant amplitude and frequency has been developed in recent years, with the vibration grouting being reported to have a permeability increasing effect of grout material compared with the positive pressure injection type. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to investigate the improvement effect of the vibration grouting that applies short-period vibration energy by varying vibration cycle, vibration time and ground conditions to evaluate the strength enhancing effect of grouting materials, expansion effect of grouting body, ground improvement effect of the grouting and the penetration characteristics of the rock joint. The findings of this study show the improved compressive strength of grout, expansion of grouting body and increased penetration rate, according to the vibration compared with non-vibration under the loose soil condition.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.38 no.3 s.172
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• pp.305-317
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• 2005

This study addresses the preliminary results of rock slope stability analyses including hazard assessments for slope failure conducted on the selected sections of rural road cut slope which are about 4 km long. The study area is located in the Mt. Chuntae northeast of Busan and mainly composed of Cretaceous rhyolitic ash-flow tuff', fallout tuff, rhyolitc and andesite. The volcanic rock mass in the area has a number of discontinuities that produce a potentially unstable slope, as the present cut slope is more than 70 degrees in most of the slope sections. Discontinuity geometry data were collected at selected 8 scanline sections and analyzed to estimate important discontinuity geometry parameters to perform rock slope kinematic and block theory analyses. Kinematic analysis for plane sliding has resulted in maximum safe slope angles greater than $65^{\circ}$ for most of the discontinuities. For most of the wedges, maximum safe cut slope angles greater than $45^{\circ}$ were obtained. Maximum safe slope angles greater than 80" were obtained fur most of the discontinuities in the toppling case. The block theory analysis resulted in the identification of potential key blocks (type II) in the SL4, SL5, SL6 and SL8 sections. The chance of sliding taking place through a type ll block under a combined gravitational and external loading is quite high in the investigated area. The results support in-field observations of a potentially unstable slope that could become hazardous under external forces. The results obtained through limit equilibrium slope stability analyses show how a stable slope can become an unstable slope as the water pressure acting on joints increases and how a stable slope under Barton's shear strength criterion can fail as the worst case scenario of using Mohr-Coulomb criterion.