• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.34 no.7
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• pp.17-27
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• 2018

Sinkholes have occurred in various places around the world and concerns about public safety have been raised in recent years. Particularly, a ground subsidence may occur due to a variety of conditions when developing underground spaces. Ground subsidence refers to the sinking of the Earth's surface caused by the loss of the soil constituting ground due to a certain artificial cause in the ground. Ground subsidence is induced by artificial causes such as the leakage of water supply/sewage pipes and groundwater disturbance, and it is different from a sinkhole, where the sinking of the Earth's surface is induced by the cavity formed due to the melting of limestone in the ground with limestone bedrock. In recent underground development in the urban areas of Korea, damages to surrounding buildings have frequently led to many difficulties with civil complaints and compensation issues, and the collapse of some buildings has resulted in the loss of lives and property. Accordingly, the central government has legislated the Special Act on Underground Safety Management, which will take effect from January 1, 2018. This law specifies an underground safety management system for securing underground safety, under which underground safety impact assessment is performed for projects involving underground excavation work that exceeds a certain size, and safety inspection is regularly performed for underground facilities and the surrounding ground. In this study, the contents of the special act on underground safety management are reviewed, and the direction of development of underground safety policy for preparing preemptive underground safety management preparation and response system is suggested.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.20-29
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• 2022

The existence of underground cavity should be considered in the assessment of georisk such as ground subsidence. Even if the shear strength of the ground around the cavity is known, it is difficult to accurately analyze the safety around the cavity due to the uncertainties related to geometric conditions such as the cavity size. In this paper, stability chart representing dimensionless stability constants was proposed based on the ground strength and geometric conditions. Numerical analysis had been carried out accounting for the stability constants such as the ground strength, the adhesion and friction angles, and the size and depth of the underground cavity. The proposed charts can help estimating the stability of ground with underground circular cavity.

• Land and Housing Review
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.13-22
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• 2017

In this study, triggering mechanism of ground sinking was analyzed through groundwater flow analysis on the basis of a case of the ground sinking occurred in Yongsan in 2015. The results of geotechnical investigation performed before and after the ground sinking were analyzed for the accurate understanding of geological features in the study area. The numerical groundwater flow analysis was performed to evaluate the influence of the flow behavior from the surrounding area toward the excavated site using software of Visual MODFLOW. As a result, it was found from the geotechnical analysis that the strata of sedimentary layer along the sunken area in the vertical direction was mixed significantly after the ground sinking compared with the status of the soil condition before the ground sinking. Piping was occurred at the toe of cut-off wall in the sandy gravel layer, and this phenomenon was predicted by the numerical flow analysis. Sequential ground displacement scenario of the ground sinking was derived from the geotechnical in situ test and numerical flow analysis performed in this study.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.23-33
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• 2017

Due to the rapid development of cities, densities and heights of urban structures are increased, and much larger and more underground spaces are being developed accordingly. Increasing development of underground spaces has induced more ground sinks and underground cavities. Therefore, safety of people is threatened by potential ground collapses and possible accidents, which may result from underground cavity. To actively respond against potential danger of ground sink, evaluation of existing cavity grade and development of recovery procedure are important. There exists the ground sinking management grade system of expressway developed as local standards in Japan. Recently, ground sinking management grade system of Seoul was developed with consideration of road and asphalt conditions. In this study, 209 underground cavities of ${\bigcirc}{\bigcirc}$ area were explored and their cavity shapes and grades were evaluated based on both ground sinking management grade systems of Japan and Seoul. Comparison is made between cavity grades evaluated based on both grading systems from Japan and Seoul. As a result of comparative analysis, the conservatively-estimated cavity grades requiring emergency restoration based on the Japanese management grade system of expressway result from neglection of layer thickness of surface pavement, considering only width and cover depth of a cavity.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.31 no.11
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• pp.41-48
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• 2015

An investigation of a void and a loose layer of the ground is essential in order to prevent the losses of life and properties caused by subsidence and sinkage of the ground. Recently, studies on the ground penetrating radar survey have been actively conducted in order to estimate the void and the loose layer of the ground. However, an error can be committed by contrarily predicting a dense ground and a loose layer because the ground penetrating radar estimates an interface depth between geo-materials that have different electrical impedances. In this study, a loose ground depth is estimated using the characteristics of the reflected electromagnetic wave obtained from the ground penetrating radar survey. To gather the signals according to the loose ground depths, the ground penetrating radar survey is conducted on a field which underwent a huge ground settlement. In addition, the dynamic cone penetration test is performed to verify the result of the loose ground depth estimation from the ground penetrating radar survey. From the analysis of the reflection characteristics of the electromagnetic wave, a phase of an electromagnetic wave reflected from a denser soil layer is found to be identical with that of the first measured signal. On the other hand, a phase of an electromagnetic wave reflected from the loose soil layer is found to be opposed to that of the first detected signal. The comparison between the dynamic cone penetration index and electromagnetic signals by the ground penetrating radar shows that the estimated depth of the loose or dense layer is perfectly matched with a high reliability. The ground penetrating radar survey and the signal analysis performed in this study can be used not only for the survey of interface depth between the discontinuity layers but also for the estimation of the loose layer.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.5-12
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• 2018

Underground cavities could induce road subsidence, which have been frequently observed in urban areas. Therefore, adequate backfilling materials and the restoring methods of the cavities are required to prevent the road subsidence. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the suitability of backfilling methods using foaming lightweight grouting materials considering the flow values, unit weights, and air contents at slurry and expanded states, and unconfined compressive strengths. The grouting materials consist of water, cement, and foaming agent whose proportions of water, cement, and foaming agent are 25: 25: 1.0 and 25: 25: 1.2. The flow values of the two materials are greater than 200 mm, and their unconfined compressive strengths at 28 days age are smaller than 1.3 MPa. From the results, the two proportions of materials are expected to be effectively used as a backfilling material. However, the material components should be carefully mixed because poor mix of these materials could induce non-homogeneous distribution of air bubbles. The unexpectedly non-homogeneous distribution of air bubbles may induce significant cracks or additional cavities.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Navigation and Port Research Conference
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• 2016.05a
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• pp.137-138
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• 2016

최근들어, 태풍, 집중호우로 인한 피해 등 국내에서는 크고 작은 풍수해를 격고 있으며, 이와 같은 풍수해는 전세계적인 이상기온의 영향으로 점차 증가하고 있다. 풍수해로 인한 피해는 지상의 구조물, 건물 등의 피해와 함께 지하시설물에 대한 피해도 증가하고 있지만, 지하공간정보의 부족으로 인하여 선제적 예방 및 신속한 대응을 통한 능동적 지하시설물 피해예방대책 수립이 어려운 실정이다. 특히, 호우로 인한 지반침하 및 함몰 등에 의한 지하시설물 피해영향분석을 위해서는 시추정보, 지질정보, 관정정보 등으로 구성된 지반정보의 활용이 절대적이다. 본 연구에서는 현재 국토교통부에서 추진 중인 지하공간통합지도 구축과 관련하여 항만구조물 지역 내 지반정보 구축 방안을 제시하고자 한다.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.393-405
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• 2017

This report is intended to be used as a reference in the project being conducted by MIRECO for preventing ground subsidence in mining district. For this purpose, the procedure of the project for preventing ground subsidence mining district was described and cases of design, construction, and study were introduced.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.45-54
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• 2018

In this study, numerical analysis is performed to determine highly influential factors that increase the possibility of asphalt road collapse due to cavity underneath the road. The considered influence factors on road collapse due to underground cavity were the asphalt layer thickness, the cover depth, the cavity width, and the cavity height. The concentrated load and uniform distributed pressure were applied on the top surface of asphalt pavement layers with different shape of cavity and asphalt thickness. For each analysis case of given cavity and asphalt thickness, failure load was analyzed under displacement controlled condition. Based on the analyzed failure loads, the applicability of the cavity management system developed by Seoul city was evaluated. As a result of the analysis, the effect of cavity height on road collapse was not significant while the other factors considerably influenced road collapse. Consequently, degree of road collapse susceptibility should be classified by failure load rather than by the condition of existing cavity.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.121-129
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• 2017

There have been a number of water and sewer pipe breakdown reports followed by ground subsidence. Also, the excavating works for construction due to overcrowding of city have been common. Particularly, in urban areas ground becomes unstable because of the lowered lifeline sinkage followed excavation and backfilling. In order to solve the problem, some reinforcement works for ground by rod tamping or grouting have been applied. However, it is hard to predict when the buried utilities in underground will be damaged. Also, there is a limit for the underground exploration and investigation methods. Therefore, in this study, the estimated about the water soluble polymer pouch including poor mixed admixture which is designed to eliminate the dangerous factors. The reinforcement strength of this method was confirmed by verifying three points: meltiness in a certain period, water solubility in the ground water level, and characteristics of the pouch, which can be stored in daily conditions. It is also proved that this method allows to keep the ground from getting weakened in the installation of water and sewer pipe along with back filling materials.