• Journal of environmental and Sanitary engineering
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• v.3 no.2 s.5
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• pp.79-90
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• 1988

Untill to-day the disposal of municipal refuse in Korea is entirely depending on dumping the refuse into concave land except a few case that bring about the secondary pollution by generating insects, offensive odour and the dust blow which cause adverse effects to dwelling community in the vicinity. It is widely recognized since Korea is ready to be advanced nation must be carried out the proper way of refuse disposal as meet with the environmental standard and ready to accept by general public. Refuse disposal that is practiced by world wide is known as sanitary landfill although it bears some what the expensive construction and operation costs rather than the plain dumping. The following statement is the construction of sanitary landfill in brief. When one takes a look at the Unites States which has huge territory normaly carry out the refuse disposal by anaerobic improved landfill method while the country has limitted land is experimenting various types of landfill which bring about the earier reuse of completed landfill site and minimise the secondary pollution. The author of this article consider out of several landfill methods the semi aerobic landfill will be widely applied in Korea in coming day, the following article will elaborate little more about the semi aerobic method.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.284-291
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• 2010

In the present design concept of a high-level waste repository, the bentonite and bentonite-sand mixture are considered as the buffer and backfill material. For the Kyungju bentonite which is a candidate material, the thermal conductivities of compacted bentonite and bentonite-sand mixture were measured. A correlation has been proposed to predict the thermal conductivity of the Kyungju bentonite and the bentonite-sand mixture as a function of the dry density, the water content and the sand fraction. The proposed correlation can predict the thermal conductivity with a difference less than 10% under the experimental conditions.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.271-279
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• 2010

Time-dependent behavior similar to secondary deformation related to mineral dissolution is easily observed when performing a laboratory pressure experiment. In this research, to observe the dissolution of quartz found in bentonite used as buffer material for the geological disposal of high-level waste (HLW) under conditions of high pH, we calculated the diffusion of $OH^-$ ions and the behavior of quartz dissolution using the homogenization analysis method. The results reveal that the rate of quartz dissolution is proportional to the temperature and interlayer water thickness. In particular, in a high-pH environment, the reacted area (and therefore the dissolution rate) increases with decreasing interlayer water thickness.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.359-369
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• 2011

In this study, physical, mechanical, and thermal properties of rock samples were investigated to estimate the Excavation Damaged Zone (EDZ) developed during the construction of the KAERI Underground Research Tunnel. The average porosity in the EDZ was increased by about 140%. The average wave velocity, Young's modulus, and uniaxial compressive strength in the EDZ were decreased by about 11, 37, and 16%, respectively. And the thermal conductivity in the EDZ was decreased by about 20%. From the laboratory tests, the EDZ size could be estimated to be around 1.1-2.4 m.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.271-305
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• 2020

An effect of coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical and chemical (THMC) behavior is an essential part of the performance and safety assessment of geological disposal systems for high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel. Furthermore, numerical models and modeling techniques are necessary to analyze and predict the coupled THMC behavior in the disposal systems. However, phenomena associated with the coupled THMC behavior are nonlinear, and the constitutive relationships between them are not well known. Therefore, it is challenging to develop numerical models and modeling techniques to analyze and predict the coupled THMC behavior in the geological disposal systems. It is also difficult to verify and validate the development of the models and techniques because it requires expensive laboratory tests and in-situ experiments that need to be performed for a long time. DECOVALEX was initiated in 1992 to efficiently develop numerical models and modeling techniques and validate the developed models and techniques against the lab and in-situ experiments. In Korea, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute has participated in DECOVALEX-2011, DECOVALEX-2015, and DECOVALEX-2019 since 2008. In this study, all tasks in the three DECOVALEX projects were introduced to the researcher in the field of rock mechanics and geotechnical engineering in Korea.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.610-622
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• 2021

The DECOVALEX project is one of the representative international cooperative projects to enhance the understanding of the complex Thermo-Hydro-Mechanical-Chemical(THMC) coupled behavior in the high-level radioactive waste disposal system based on the numerical simulation. DECOVALEX-2023 is the current phase consisting of 7 tasks, and Task C aims to model the THM coupled behavior in the disposal system based on the Full-scale Emplacement (FE) experiment at the Mont-Terri underground rock laboratory. This study performs the numerical simulation based on the OGS-FLAC developed for the current study. In the numerical model, we emplaced the heater with constant power horizontally based on the FE experiment and monitored the pressure development, temperature increase, and mechanical deformation at the specific monitoring points. We monitored the capillary pressure as the primary effect inducing the flow in the buffer system, and thermal stress and pressurization were dominant in the surrounding rocks' area. The results will also be compared and validated with the other participating groups and the experimental data further.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.42-56
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• 2023

In deep geological disposal of high-level radioactive waste (HLW), the natural barrier must physically support the disposal facility and delay the movement of radionuclides for at least hundreds of thousands of years. To evaluate the long-term geological evolution of the natural barriers, it is essential to analyze the long-term behavior of rock joints, including the frictional healing behavior. This study aimed to experimentally analyze the frictional healing behavior of rock joints under hydro-mechanical (H-M) conditions through the slide-hold-slide (SHS) test. The SHS tests were performed under mechanical and H-M conditions for joint specimens of different roughness. In the H-M conditions, the frictional healing rate tended to increase, which was more evident in the specimens with large roughness. In addition, it was confirmed that the effect of the hydro-mechanical conditions was more significant when the effective normal stress acting on the joint surface was small. These results are expected to be used as fundamental data to understand the frictional healing behavior of rock joints in the natural barriers.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.228-243
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• 2023

Bentonite is widely recognized and utilized as a buffer material in high-level radioactive waste repositories, mainly due to its favorable characteristics such as swelling capability and low permeability. Bentonite buffers play an important role in ensuring the safe disposal of radioactive waste by providing a low permeability barrier and effectively preventing the migration of radionuclides into the surrounding rock. However, the long-term performance of bentonite buffers still remains a subject of ongoing research, and one of the main concerns is the erosion of the buffer induced by swelling and groundwater flow. The erosion of the bentonite buffer can significantly impact repository safety by compromising the integrity of buffer and leading to the formation of colloids that may facilitate the transport of radionuclides through groundwater, consequently elevating the risk of radionuclide migration. Therefore, it is very important to numerically quantify the erosion of bentonite buffer to evaluate the long-term performance of bentonite buffer, which is crucial for the safety assessment of high-level radioactive waste disposal. In this technical note, Two-region model is introduced, a proposed model to simulate the erosion behavior of bentonite based on a dynamic bentonite diffusion model, and quantitative evaluation is conducted for the bentonite buffer erosion with this model.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.13-24
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• 2012

In this study, the in-situ model test has been conducted and used to estimate and analyze consolidation behavior of the ground by using the miniature test that reconstructs economically geotechnical behavior of in-situ full scale structure. To analogize the relation among effective stress, void ratio and coefficient of permeability at the self-weight consolidation stage, the low stress seepage consolidation test has been conducted and the involution function of constitutive equation had been obtained from the result of the curve fitted seepage consolidation test result. As a result of the numerical analysis that had been conducted on the representative section using a constitute equation, final settlement was similar with those of self-weight consolidation of the centrifugal model test. But, it was more or less smaller. It seems that these trends are caused by the difference between estimated values.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.41-49
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• 2003

If MSW(Municipal Solid Waste) landfill is used as a foundation ground of construction site, the change of loading condition may cause a large amount of compression in MSW landfill. Therefore, the reinforcement for the loose compression nature of MSW landfill would be very important design factor to geotechnical engineers in considering the end-use of the landfill. In this study, a possible technique for stabilizing MSW landfill with use of codisposal of municipal solid waste and Fly Ash is discussed. In order to estimate the stabilization of compression characteristic of codisposed landfill, large compression test and lysimeter test were performed. According to the test results, as the proportion of Fly Ash increases, the compression might be reduced, but the permeability might be also reduced. Therefore, it is necessary to take into account the both characteristics changes in real application.