• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.439-449
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• 2011

The characteristics of rock fractures for engineering rock classification are investigated by analyzing three dimensional point cloud generated from adjusted digital images of a tunnel face during construction and the tunnel is reinforced based on the supporting pattern suggested by the RMR and the Q system using parameters extracted from those images. As results, it is possible saving time required from face mapping to tunnel reinforcing work, enhancing safety during face mapping work in tunnels and reliability of both the mapping information and selecting supporting pattern by storing the files of digital images and related information which can be checked again, if necessary sometime in the future.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.20-32
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• 2011

Failure aspects of cut-slope, which induce the sequential collapses during the excavation stage, have been analyzed. Slope rock structures are investigated by examining the orientations and positions of discontinuity planes calculated based on the BIPS image inside the boreholes. Drilled core log has been also used to identify the structural defects. Clay minerals of swelling potentials are detected through XRD analysis. Numerical analysis for slope stability has been performed by utilizing the joint shear strength acquired from the direct joint shear test. Cut-slope collapse characteristics have been studied by investigating the posture of failure-prawn joint planes and the stability of tetrahedral blocks of different sizes. Cross-section analysis has been also performed to analyze the cut-slope behavior and to estimate the amount of reinforcement required to secure the stability of cut-slope. Behavior of reinforced cut-slope is also investigated by analyzing the slope monitoring data.

• Explosives and Blasting
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.1-12
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• 2004

In bench blasting, rock fragmentation is one of the most important factors determining productivity. Rock fragmentation could be affected by various conditions and these were hewn that rock joint conditions and in-situ block sizes were the biggest effect on it. This research is focused on what or how to influence on rock fragmentation according to relation between blasting conditions and the in-situ rock conditions such as rock joint conditions and in-situ block size. Field measurements were carried out in 3 open pit limestone mines, where in-situ rock conditions and blasting conditions were fully investigated. The results show that the parameters interact with blasting conditions complicatedly and especially in-situ block size has bigger effects. Dip direction of major joint set also can affect on fragmentation. Mean fragment size become smallest when dip direction of major joint set is about $30^{\circ}$ with the bench direction. The reason is considered to be come from difference of propagation paths of elastic wave.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.351-358
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• 1998

A statistical method for assessing the joint persistence based on the in-situ measurement of joint trace length has been derived. This method utilizes the probability density distribution of either the joint trace length or the diameter of hypothetically circular joint diameter depending on the relative size of joint surface to that of the potential keyblock. The stability of potential keyblock with different sizes and joint persistences has been also calculated to illustrate the applicability of the developed method to the design and the safe excavation of large scale underground openings.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.357-366
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• 2021

Shear behavior dependent on the shape and roughness of rock joints can greatly influence the stability of the ground and rock structures. The efficient design of rock structures requires understanding of the shear behavior due to joints and accurate calculation of the shear strength. This work reports numerical shear tests using PFC2D on No. 1 (JCR-1), with smooth joints, and No. 7 (JRC-7) and No. 9 (JRC-9), with relatively rough joints, for the 10 shapes of standard joint profiles proposed by Barton and Choubey (1977). The aim was to investigate the shear behavior of rock joints with respect to their roughness. The results show the maximum shear stress to be about 3.2 to 5.0 times greater in the rougher JRC-7 and JRC-9 joints than in smoother JRC-1. The maximum shear displacement was approximately 4.1 to 5.8 times greater at the first normal stress than at the second. The rougher joints showed friction angles of the rock joints that were approximately 1.8 to 3.9 times greater than that in the smooth joint. Overall, increasing the rock joint roughness increased the maximum shear stress and friction angle.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.59-71
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• 2018

Since the generalized Hoek-Brown (GHB) function predicts the strength of the jointed rock mass in a systematic manner by use of GSI index, it is widely used in rock engineering practices. In this study, a series of 2D elasto-plastic FE analysis, which adopts the GHB criterion as a yield function, was carried out to investigate the radial convergence characteristics of circular tunnel excavated in the GHB rock mass. The effect of the plastic potential function on the elasto-plastic displacement was also examined. In the analysis, the wide range of both the $K(={\sigma}_h/{\sigma}_v)$ and GSI values are considered. For each K value, the variation of the ratio of sidewall displacement to roof displacement was calculated with varying GSI values and the obtained displacement patterns were analysed. The calculation results show that the displacement ratio significantly depends not only on the K value but also on the range of GSI value. In particular, for lower range of GSI value, the displacement ratio pattern calculated in the elasto-plastic regime is opposite to that predicted by the elasticity theory. In addition, the variation of the radial displacement ratio with GSI value for different types of plastic potential function showed similar trend.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.31-42
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• 2009

One set of hardware system of guide point method (GP method), modified from the multistage convergent photographing technique, was developed to interpret the geometrical characteristics of Joints photogrammetrically on rock slope. Before the field application of the hardware system, the level of errors and constraints that ran be acceptable in the field measurement has been severely investigated in the laboratory and the optimum photographing scheme was analyzed. The range of the most suitable convergence angle between two cameras was $25^{\circ}{\sim}150^{\circ}$ and the photographing distance was about 5.5 m when using a 2 M pixel digital camera. An extended analyzing technique, which was newly developed in this study, was applied to the field measurement to magnify the benefits of GP method. This technique can be applied when survey for the wide range of rock surface is necessary. The global coordinates of ground control points for the neighbor photographing area ran be introduced without any preparation from the previous photographed area using this technique. It could reduce phographing time in the field.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.270-278
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• 2001

Two numerical methods such as DEM and FDM were adopted to analysis of rock slope stability, of which dimensions are about 150 m(length), 58 m(height), 70°dip, in Halla limestone mine. For this rock slope stability analysis, strength reduction method was used to calculate the safety factor of slope through numerical method. To keep the rock slope safely, it is proposed to reduce the height of the rock slope from 58 m to 45 m and to reduce the angle of the slope from 70°to 55°, too.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.324-332
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• 2017

In this paper, a numerical analysis of one-dimensional viscous fluid flow in a rock joint using UDEC code is performed to evaluate the effect of design parameters on injection performance. We consider injection pressure, fluid compressibility, time dependence of yield strength and viscosity of injected grout fluid, and mechanical deformation of joint as the design parameters, and penetration length and flow rate of injection are investigated as the injection performance. Numerical estimations of penetration length and flow rate were compared to analytical solution and were well comparable with each other. We showed that cumulative injection volume can be over-estimated by 1.2 times than the case that the time-dependent viscosity evolution is not considered. We also carried out a coupled fluid flow and mechanical deformation analysis and demonstrated that injection-induced joint opening may result in the increment of cumulative volume by 4.4 times of that from the flow only analysis in which joint aperture is kept constant.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.440-449
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• 2009

LCM test is one of the most powerful and reliable methods of experiment for the cutter head design and the performance prediction of TBM. In many cases, however, the predicted design model can be directly applied to the field design, because this test may have an uppermost limit in preparation and/or transportation of the large size rock samples and the test for the jointed rock mass is not easy. When the proper and reasonable numerical modeling is considered to overcome this limit, the most adequate cutter head design for TBM could be presented without any complicate preconsideration in the field. In this study, the crack propagation patterns dependent on the contact point of disc cutter and the angle of rock joint are analyzed for the rock specimen with a single joint using the UDEC. The authors could derive the appropriate contact points of disc cutters and their space with respect to the joint angle in rock mass thru the numerical analysis.