• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.635-647
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• 2009

For the calculation of foundation settlement it is recommended to take into account so called influence zone inside the subsoil bellow the foundation structure. Influence zone inside the subsoil is the region where the load has a substantial influence on the deformation of the soil skeleton. The soil skeleton is pre-consolidated or over consolidated due to the original geostatic stress state. An excavation changes the original geostatic stress state and it creates the space for the load transferred from upper structure. The theory of elastic layer in Westergard manner is selected for the vertical stress calculation. The depth of influence zone is calculated from the equality of the original geostatic stress and the new geostatic stress due to excavation combined with the vertical stress from the upper structure. Two close formulas are presented for the influence zone calculation. Using ADINA code we carried out several numerical examples to verify the proposed analytical formulas and to enhance their use in civil engineering practice. Otherwise, the FEM code accuracy can be control.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2009.03a
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• pp.692-701
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• 2009

The use of vertical drain method to improve the soft soil ground has been continuously increased in Korea such as Busan New Port, Saemangeum reclamation project and so on in Korea. Especially PBD(Plastic Board Drain), one of the vertical drain, has been widely used due to the economic feasibility, construction compatibility and quality control. However in case of using PBD, discharge capacity reduction caused by creep deformation of the PBD filter, bending, kinking and so on can be occurred. Therefore the purpose of this study is to solve these problems by developing Deformation-Compatible Vertical Drain, DCVD which allows to deform with consolidation settlement without bending and kinking of vertical drain. In order to investigate the performance of DCVD developed in this study, discharge capacity test, centrifuge model test and complex discharge capacity test for both PBD and DCVD are performed and the results are compared.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.1-10
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• 2006

In This paper, the settlements of soft ground and the undrained shear strength were compared for verify the improvement effect of PBD method, completed in the Busan New Port phase 1-1 site. Through the describing of design cases with the PBD method, the effects of the improvement method with CPT data were evaluated comparing with measured results. We expect that the output from this research is useful in future for design and analysis when similar soft grounds are planned to be used.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.22 no.11
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• pp.133-142
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• 2006

Pusan clay, which is distributed in the Nakdong River estuary, is unusually soft and thick compared with other clays in the world. Because the consolidation settlement of the clay was significantly underestimated in several recent reclamation projects, it has been emphasized particularly on the need of studying the permeability characteristics. This study carries out vertical and horizontal permeability tests on undisturbed and consolidated samples from two sites of the area. The results of the study show the peculiar permeability anisotropy and the relationships with other indexes on Pusan clay and also comparison with those of other world clays.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.35-45
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• 2017

Gravel compaction pile (GCP) is widely used as it increases the bearing capacity of soft ground and reduces the consolidation settlement. Stress concentration ratio for design is dependent on the area replacement, surcharge pressure, depth and penetration rate. However, a range of stress concentration ratio obtained through field, laboratory experiments and numerical analysis is large. But since the main objective of the study is to evaluate the stress concentration ratio and settlement for both area replacement ratio and penetration rate through numerical analysis. Numerical analysis using the finite element program ABAQUS 6.12-4 has been performed for the composite ground with GCP. As a result, the stress concentration ratio at the points except for the point of top is in the range of 1.21-5.36, 1.19-5.45, 2.16-5.60 for 60%, 80% and 100% penetration, respectively. In general, as the penetration rate and area replacement ratio increases, the stress concentration ratio tends to increase.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.47-59
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• 2023

In this research, laboratory tests were conducted on clayey sand (SC) to analyze its physical properties, compaction/permeability characteristics, and stress-strain behavior. The main objective was to determine the transitional fines content at which the mechanical properties of sand transition to those of clay, resulting in a change in the geotechnical behavior of the material. Additionally, to assess the practical applicability of SC soil, field data from a soft ground improvement site with significant settlement issues were collected. The settlement characteristics derived from laboratory tests and numerical simulations were then compared and analyzed in relation to the actual settlement data obtained from the field, aiming to evaluate the suitability of the SC soil as a compaction target layer. The laboratory tests and compaction analysis showed that the SC soil exhibited a distinct change in mechanical properties, shifting from sandy behavior to clayey behavior when the fines content exceeded 25%. This transition in mechanical behavior was found to be closely correlated with the content of clay particles within the material. Through numerical simulations of the soft ground site, it was verified that the use of clayey sand with a fines content exceeding the transitional level as a compaction target layer resulted in settlements that closely aligned with the measured settlements, with an average agreement of 91.2%. Based on these findings, it is deemed advisable to incorporate clayey sand with a fines content exceeding the transitional level as part of the compaction target layer in the design of soft ground improvements.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.51-62
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• 2004

Granular compaction piles have the load bearing capacity of the soft ground increase and have the settlement of foundation built on the reinforced soil reduce. The granular compaction group piles also have the consolidation of the soft ground accelerate and have the liquefaction caused by earthquake prevent using the granular materials such as sand, gravel, stone etc. However, this method is one of unuseful methods in Korea. The Granular compaction piles are constructed by grouping it with a raft system. The confining pressure at the center of bulging failure depth is a major variable in relation to estimate for the ultimate bearing capacity of the granular compaction piles. Therefore, a share of loading is determined considering the effect of load concentration ratio between the granular compaction piles and surrounding soils, and varies the magnitude of the confining pressure. In this study, method for the determination of the ultimate bearing capacity is proposed to apply a change of the horizontal pressure considering bulging failure depth, surcharge and loaded area. Also, the ultimate bearing capacity of the granular compaction piles is evaluated on the basis of previous study on the estimation of the ultimate bearing capacity and compared with the results obtained from laboratory scale model tests. And using the result from laboratory model tests, it is studied increase effect of the bearing capacity on the granular compaction piles and variance of coefficient of consolidation for the ground.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.39-47
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• 1982

Geotextile effects as reinforcement and vertical drain materials are studied through the laboratory model embankments on weak clays. The experiments are carried out in four stages; no woven fabrics between clay-crushed stone boundary, fabrics between boundary with no initial pretensioning of fabrics, and fabrics between boundary with two different initial pretensionings of fabrics. In all stages, vertical drains utilizing non-woven fabrics are installed in the clay layer in square pattern to accelarate the consolidation. The experimental model has plane dimensions of $32cm{\times}330cm$. The height for the clay container is 60 cm. The 47 cm height of crushed stone embankment is constructed over the 50 cm deep clay layer. The time dependent pore pressures are measured utilizing the 8 piezometers installed symmetrically on both sides of the wall at different heights. The time dependent deformations are measured utilizing the LED indicating lamp matrix inserted in the crushed stone embankment and the dialgauges put on top of the clay layer where the crushed stones are not laid. The measurements are carried out for 10 days which is equivalent to the time required for the primary consolidation. Through the experimental study, an analytical procedure is developed to predict the time dependent embankment settlement even if the top of the clay layer is reinforced with woven fabrics. This can be done through measuring the maximum pore pressures developed in the clay layer and comparing with the theoretical maximum pore pressures when no reinforcing fabrics are employed.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.21 no.9
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• pp.13-23
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• 2005

The prefabricated vertical drains (PVDs) are one of the most widely used techniques to accelerate the consolidation of soft clay deposits and dredged soil. Discharge capacity is one of the factors affecting the behavior of PVDs. In the field, a PVD is confined by clay or dredged soil, which is normally remolded during PVD installation. Under field conditions, soil particles may enter the PVD drainage channels, and the consolidation settlement of the improved subsoil may cause 131ding of the PVD. These factors will affect the discharge capacity of the PVDs. In this study an experimental study was carried out to estimate the discharge capacity of three different types of PVDs by utilizing the large-scale laboratory model testing and small-scale laboratory model testing equipments. The several factors such as confinement condition (confined by soft marine clay or dredged soil) and variations of the discharge capacity were studied with time under soil specimen confinement, The test results indicated that discharge capacity decreases with increasing load, time, and hydraulic gradient. With load application, the cross-sectional area of the drainage channel of PVD decreases because the filter of PVD is pressed into the core. The discharge capacity of the soft marine clay-confined PVDs is much lower than that of the dredged soil-confined PVDs.

• Geotechnical Engineering
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.129-142
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• 1998

This research is focused on the inducement of the constitutive equation considering the creep strain component and on the development of a finite element method program. The purpose of this research was to contribute to the design of construction structures or to the construction management in soft clay ground through predicting the long-term strain of construction structures reasonably bused on the above program. Modified Cam Clay model was adopted to describe the elastic-plastic behavior of clayey soil. And in the calculation of the creep sprain, the secondary coefficient of consolidation C. was applied for considering the volumetric creep element and the constants m, $\alpha$, A were rosed by the empirical creep equation proposed by Singh 8E Mitchell for considering the deviatoric creep element. To examine the reliability of the program which is developed in this study, the estimated values by this program were compared with the theoretical solution and the experimental results. And the applicability of the developed program was found to be reliable from the sensitive analysis of each parameters used in this study. According to the results obtained from the application of the program on the field measurement data, the estimated values by the program were found with be consistent with the actual values. And from the analysis of the displacement of embankments, the case of considering the creep behavior induced much fower errors than the case of neglecting it. But the results obtained from considering the volumetric creep behavior only were slightly underestimated the results from considering the deviator creep behavior showed the slightly overestimated values. Therefore, it remains the task of further studios to develop the laboratory test devices to obtain the reliable creep parameters, and to select the appropriate soil parameters, etc.