• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.1509-1521
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• 2013

Social demand for the stability of structures lead to the development of the technology to accomplish it. The non-destructive seismic technique, which is able to assess structural integrity of infrastructures, belongs to this category. Seismic technique is focused on the measurement of seismic velocity propagating through the material, and has to utilize sensors coupled to material surface, which does not allow the testing to be performed on the fly. In this paper, a general vocal microphone, which works as a non-contact sensor, was adopted to facilitate seismic testing with mobility and efficiency improved. The target of using microphones was oriented toward quality assessment of compacted subgrade, stiffness evaluation and health monitoring of concrete structures. Experimental parametric study and field applications were performed to investigate reliability and efficiency of microphones. Finally, the optimal test configuration of microphones was suggested for resonance tests and surface-wave tests.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.157-163
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• 2008

This paper presents a novel fiber optic tiltmeter system for the health monitoring of large-size structures. The system is composed of a sensor head, a light control unit and a signal processing unit. The sensing mechanism of the sensor head is based on a novel integration of the moire fringe phenomenon with fiber optics to achieve a robust performance in addition to its immunity to EM interference, easy ratting, and low cost. In this paper, a prototype of the fiber optic tiltmeter system has been developed successfully. A low-cost light control unit has been developed to drive the system's optic and electronic components. From an experimental test, the fiber optic tiltmeter is proven to be a prospective sensor for the monitoring of the tilting angle of civil structure with a good linearity. Finally, the test also successfully demonstrates the performance and the potential of the novel fiber optic tiltmeter system to monitor the health of civil infrastructures.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.195-214
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• 2017

Full-scale wind characteristics based on the field measurements is an essential element in structural wind engineering. Statistical analysis of the wind characteristics at Sutong Cable-stayed Bridge (SCB) site is conducted in this study with the recorded long-term wind data from structural health monitoring system (SHMS) between 2008 and 2015. Both the mean and turbulent wind characteristics and power spectra are comprehensively investigated and compared with those in the current codes of practice, such as the measured wind rose diagram, monthly maximum mean wind speed, turbulence intensity, integral length scale. Measurement results based on the monitoring data show that winds surrounding the SCB site are substantially influenced by the southeast monsoon in summer and strong northern wind in winter. The measured turbulence intensity is slightly higher than the recommended values in specifications, while the measured ratio of lateral to longitudinal turbulence intensity is slightly lower. An approximately linear relationship between the measured turbulence intensities and gust factors is obtained. The mean value of the turbulence integral length scale is smaller than that of typical typhoon events. In addition, it is found that the Kaimal spectrum is suitable to be adopted as the power spectrum for longitudinal wind component at the SCB site. This contribution would provide important wind characteristic references for the wind performance evaluation of SCB and other civil infrastructures in adjacent regions.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.177-186
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• 2016

Drought is a water-related natural disaster which can be simply described as spatially and temporally sequential absence of water. However, its characteristics are very difficult to define. For this reason, the preparation and mitigation from drought events have not been successful. In the current study, we illustrated a design drought estimation approach of water resources infrastructures as well as the existing theoretical one to prepare and mitigate drought disasters. Theoretical and simulation methods were tested including three time series models such as autoregressive (AR), Gamma AR, Copula AR models. The results indicated that for South Korea region, the simulation-based method to estimate drought frequency presented better performance and all the three time series models show similar performance to each other. The current drought event occurring in South Korea was investigated with dividing South Korea into four basins as Han River, Nakdong River, Geum River, and Nakdong River basins. The results showed that two middle and north basins presented significant drought events with 3 year drought duration and around 40 year return period while the other two southern regions illustrated relatively weaker drought events.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.1167-1184
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• 2015

Despite considerable life casualty and financial loss resulting from past earthquakes, many existing steel buildings are still seismically vulnerable as they have no lateral resistance or at least need some sort of retrofitting. Passive control methods with decreasing seismic demand and increasing ductility reduce rate of vulnerability of structures against earthquakes. One of the most effective and practical passive control methods is to use a shear panel system working as a ductile fuse in the structure. The shear Panel System, SPS, is located vertically between apex of two chevron braces and the flange of the floor beam. Seismic energy is highly dissipated through shear yielding of shear panel web while other elements of the structure remain almost elastic. In this paper, lateral behavior and related benefits of this system with narrow-flange link beams is experimentally investigated in chevron braced simple steel frames. For this purpose, five specimens with IPE (narrow-flange I section) shear panels were examined. All of the specimens showed high ductility and dissipated almost all input energy imposed to the structure. For example, maximum SPS shear distortion of 0.128-0.156 rad, overall ductility of 5.3-7.2, response modification factor of 7.1-11.2, and finally maximum equivalent viscous damping ratio of 35.5-40.2% in the last loading cycle corresponding to an average damping ratio of 26.7-30.6% were obtained. It was also shown that the beam, columns and braces remained elastic as expected. Considering this fact, by just changing the probably damaged shear panel pieces after earthquake, the structure can still be continuously used as another benefit of this proposed retrofitting system without the need to change the floor beam.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.31 no.2D
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• pp.285-293
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• 2011

Sewage treatment facilities are growing rapidly in quantitatively and qualitatively. However, privatization such as up-size and professionalism, etc. are insufficient, compared to global companies' cases. Infrastructure Asset management has not been applied widely despite of sewage treatment facilities are one of the most critical social infrastructure. Maintenance, repair, and rehabilitation (R&R) practices of sewage treatment facilities have been studied and infrastructures asset management techniques have been applied. Cost model which makes it possible to calculate managerial costs such as major cost, etc. needs to be developed only with project basic information when proceeding new sewage treatment facility construction and management and overseas sewage project. Effects to converse major repair cost into capital, application of sewage treatment facility's asset management, expected effects, etc. were analyzed and suggested an alternative on the improvements of legal system.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.857-870
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• 2017

The use of shield TBM is gradually increasing due to the urbanization of social infrastructures. Reliable estimation of advance rate is very important for accurate construction period and cost. For this purpose, it is required to develop the prediction model of advance rate that can consider the ground properties reasonably. Based on the database collected from field, statistical prediction procedure for field penetration index (FPI) was modularized in this study to calculate penetration rate of shield TBM. As output parameter, FPI was selected and various systems were included in this module such as, procedure of eliminating abnormal dataset, preprocessing of dataset and ridge regression with best subset selection. And it was finally validated by using field dataset.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.219-237
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• 2020

Rapid economic development and urban population growth have been increasing the necessity for underground space exploration and utilization due to the need of upgrading and expanding the existing infrastructures. TBM has been widely used to construct underground structures with high advance rate and minimal ground disturbance. Two important design parameters, which are available thrust capacity and cutterhead torque, should be estimated for any project in addition to proper selection of TBM type. However, the conventional thrust force and torque estimation model only depends on the empirical equation, which hinders the design process of the optimal thrust hydraulic system and the appropriate hydraulic components. In this study, four thrust and torque calculation models are derived and explained. For TBM design practice, the four estimation models are compared and discussed.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.570-579
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• 2021

The environments in current farming and fishing communities have been exacerbated by the shortage of personnel caused by aging, the deficiency of equipment, and the decrease in produce prices. To help solve these issues, this study examined the history, such as inspections, failures, and repairs, by constructing a database for underground water wells, pumping stations, and irrigation, which are critical for management among agriculture production infrastructures. In particular, in the case of underground water wells, their optimal locations were determined using spatial information, such as a geological map of water resources, a water vein map, and underwater depth, because indiscreet installations and an absence of spatial information resulted in economic losses and environmental pollution. Therefore, this study could efficiently manage many facilities scattered in rural areas by developing a system. An analysis of the status of 14 underground water wells using spatial information showed that the location information at six points was specified incorrectly. On the other hand, a site investigation showed that the water vein map analysis at one point was inaccurate.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.535-543
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• 2019

Building on/with expansive soils with no treatment brings complications. Compacted expansive soils specifically fall short in satisfying the minimum requirements for transport embankment infrastructures, requiring the adoption of hauled virgin mineral aggregates or a sustainable alternative. Use of hauled aggregates comes at a high carbon and economical cost. On average, every 9m high embankment built with quarried/hauled soils cost $12600MJ.m^{-2}$ Embodied Energy (EE). A prospect of using mixed cutting-arising expansive soils with industrial/domestic wastes can reduce the carbon cost and ease the pressure on landfills. The widespread use of recycled materials has been extensively limited due to concerns over their long-term performance, generally low shear strength and stiffness. In this contribution, hydromechanical properties of a waste tyre sand-sized rubber (a mixture of polybutadiene, polyisoprene, elastomers, and styrene-butadiene) and expansive silt is studied, allowing the short- and long-term behaviour of optimum compacted composites to be better established. The inclusion of tyre shred substantially decreased the swelling potential/pressure and modestly lowered the compression index. Silt-Tyre powder replacement lowered the bulk density, allowing construction of lighter reinforced earth structures. The shear strength and stiffness decreased on addition of tyre powder, yet the contribution of matric suction to the shear strength remained constant for tyre shred contents up to 20%. Reinforced soils adopted a ductile post-peak plastic behaviour with enhanced failure strain, offering the opportunity to build more flexible subgrades as recommended for expansive soils. Residual water content and tyre shred content are directly correlated; tyre-reinforced silt showed a greater capacity of water storage (than natural silts) and hence a sustainable solution to waterlogging and surficial flooding particularly in urban settings. Crushed fine tyre shred mixed with expansive silts/sands at 15 to 20 wt% appear to offer the maximum reduction in swelling-shrinking properties at minimum cracking, strength loss and enhanced compressibility expenses.