• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.373-382
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• 2022

Unsaturated soil at high suctions is widespread. Many civil engineering projects are related to the hydro-mechanical behavior of unsaturated soils at high suctions, particularly in arid and semiarid areas. To investigate water retention behaviors of nine clayey soils (one is classified as fat clay and the others are classified as lean clay according to the unified soil classification system), the high suction (3.29-286.7 MPa) was imposed on the specimens at zero net stress by the vapor equilibrium technique. In this paper, the effect of void ratio on the water retention behavior at high suction was discussed in detail. Validation data showed that soil types, i.e., different mineralogical compositions, are critical in the soil water retention behavior at a high suction range. Second, the hysteresis behavior at a high suction range is mainly related to the clay content and the specific surface area. And the mechanism of water retention and hysteresis behavior at high suctions was discussed. Moreover, the maximum suction is not a unique value, and it is crucial to determine the maximum suction value accurately, especially for the shear strength prediction at high suctions. If the soil consists of hydrophilic minerals such as montmorillonite and illite, the maximum suction will be lower than 10⁶ kPa. Finally, using the area of hysteresis to quantify the degree of hysteresis at a high suction range is proposed. There was a good correlation between the area of hydraulic hysteresis and the specific surface area.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.1A
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• pp.53-59
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• 2010

Recently, NDTs (Non-Destructive Techniques) using infrared camera are widely studied for detection of damage and void in RC (reinforced concrete) structures and they are also considered as an effective techniques for maintenance of infrastructures. The temperature on concrete surface depends on material and thermal properties such as specific heat, thermal conductivity, and thermal diffusion coefficient. Different porosity on cement mortar due to different mixture proportions can show different heat behavior in cooling stage. The porosity can affect physical and durability properties like strength and chloride diffusion coefficient as well. In this paper, active thermography which uses flash for heat induction is utilized and thermal characteristics on surface are evaluated. Samples of cement mortar with W/C (water to cement ratio) of 0.55 and 0.65 are prepared and physical properties like porosity, compressive strength, and chloride diffusion coefficient are evaluated. Then infrared thermography technique is carried out in a constant room condition (temperature $20{\sim}22^{\circ}C$ and relative humidity 55-60%). The mortar samples with higher porosity shows higher residual temperature at the cooling stage and also shows reduced critical time which shows constant temperature due to back wall effect. Furthermore, simple equation for critical time of back wall effect is suggested with porosity and experimental constants. These characteristics indicate the applicability of infrared thermography as an NDT for quality assessment of cement based composite like concrete. Physical properties and thermal behavior in cement mortar with different porosity are analyzed in discussed in this paper.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.200-206
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• 2006

In a biological aerated filter (BAF) packed with ceramic media (void fraction of BAF=0.32), nitrite accumulation was studied with the variation of hydraulic retention time (HRT) and superficial air velocity. Synthetic ammonium wastewater and petrochemical wastewater were fed at a constant load of $1.6kgNH_4^+-N/m^3{\cdot}d$. Ammonium removal rate was mainly affected by the superficial air velocity in BAF, but nitrite ratio($NO_2-N/NO_x-N$) in the effluent was dependent on both HRT and superficial air velocity. For a fixed HRT of 0.23 hr (corresponding to the empty bed contact time of 0.7 hr) ammonium removal rate was 73/90/92％ and nitrite ratio was 0.92/0.82/0.48 at the superficial air velocity of 0.23/0.45/0.56 cm/s, respectively. When HRT is increased to 0.9 hr with superficial air velocity ranging from 0.34 to 0.45 cm/s, the ammonium removal rate was 89％ on average. However nitrite ratio decreased significantly down to 0.13. When HRT was further increased to 1.4 hr, ammonium removal rate decreased, thereby resulting in the free ammonia ($NH_3-N$, FA) build-up and nitrite ratio gradually increased (>0.95). Although aeration rate and FA concentration at HRT of 0.23 hr were unfavorable for nitrite accumulation compared with those at HRT of 0.9 hr, nitrite ratio at HRT of 0.23 hr was higher. Taken together, HRT and nitrogen load were found to be critical, in addition to FA concentration and aeration condition, for nitrite accumulation in the BAF tested in the present study.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.59-65
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• 2016

Commercial synthetic resins with great amount of hydrogen atoms were investigated for neutron shielding aggregates. Total three types of resins were considered in this study: high density polyethylene (HDPE), polypropylene (PP), and ultra molecular weight polyethylene (UPE). When these resins replaced 20, 40, 60 vol% of fine aggregates, mechanical properties were first evaluated including compressive and tensile strengths, and then image/microstructure analyses such as cross-section analysis, SEM, and X-ray CT were performed. The results showed that the compressive and tensile strengths decreased with the increase of replacement ratio of HDPE and PP, which was found through image analysis that it was closely related to the distribution of resins at the failure surface of test specimens. The strength reduction of UPE was quite small compared to HDPE and PP but it abruptly increased when the replacement level exceeded 60 vol%. The results of microstructure analyses indicated that the replacement level significantly affected the amount of air void so that it is critical to determine the reasonable amount of UPE to make cementitous materials for neutron shielding.