• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.27 no.9
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• pp.77-86
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• 2011

The stress condition mainly dominates the thermal conductivity of soils whereas governing factors such as unit weight and porosity suggested by empirical correlations are still valid. The 3D thermal network model enables evaluation of the stress-dependent thermal conductivity of particulate materials generated by discrete element method (DEM). The relationship among dominant factors is analyzed based on the coordination number and porosity determined by stress condition and thermal conductivity of pore fluid. Results show that the variation of thermal conductivity is strongly attributed to the enlargement of inter-particle contact area by loading history and pore fluid conductivity. This study highlights that the anisotropic evolution of thermal conductivity depends on the directional load and that the particle-scale mechanism mainly dictates the heat transfer in soils.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.83-99
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• 2022

The two, NBD and SCB tests using gypsum circular discs each containing a single notch have been experimentally accomplished in a rock mechanics laboratory. These specimens have also been numerically modelled by a two-dimensional particle flow which is based on Discrete Element Method (DEM). Each testing specimen had a thickness of 5 cm with 10 cm in diameter. The specimens' lengths varied as 2, 3, and 4 cm; and the specimens' notch angles varied as 0°, 45° and 90°. Similar semi-circular gypsum specimens were also prepared each contained one edge notch with angles 0° or 45°. The uniaxial testing machine was used to perform the experimental tests for both NBD and SCB gypsum specimens. At the same time, the numerical simulation of these tests were performed by PFC2D. The experimental results showed that the failure mechanism of rocks is mainly affected by the orientations of joints with respect to the loading directions. The failure mechanism and fracturing patterns of the gypsum specimens are directly related to the final failure loading. It has been shown that the number of induced tensile cracks showing the specimens' tensile behavior, and increases by decreasing the length and angle of joints. It should be noted that the fracture toughness of rocks' specimens obtained by NBD tests was higher than that of the SCB tests. The fracture toughness of rocks usually increases with the increasing of joints' angles but increasing the joints' lengths do not change the fracture toughness. The numerical solutions and the experimental results for both NDB and SCB tests give nearly similar fracture patterns during the loading process.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.25 no.12
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• pp.119-130
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• 2009

To measure the soil deformation, two common techniques of the digital image analysis-Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) and Digital Image Correlation (DIC)-have been used. To generally apply these techniques to the soils, the accuracy of these techniques should be evaluated under various conditions. In this study, the influence factors including the image resolution, the degree of displacement and deformation, the size of pixel subsets, and analysis techniques were analyzed. The deformation of an idealized particle assembly using the discrete element method was measured by the digital image analyses, and then the results were compared with the actual deformations. To conduct the optimal digital image analysis, various factors are systematically analyzed in terms of the degree of the displacement and the deformation.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.43-56
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• 1992

As one of the methods to ameliorate the ray effects which are the nature of anomalous computational effects due to the discretization of the angular variable in discrete ordinates approximations, a computational program, named TWODET (TWO dimensional Discrete Element Transport), has developed in 2 dimensional cartesian coordinates system using the discrete elements method, in which the discrete angle quadratures are steered by the spatially dependent angular fluxes. The results of the TWODET calculation with K-2, L-3 discrete angular quadratures, in the problem of a centrally located, isotropically emitting flat source in an absorbing square, are shown to be more accurate than that of the DOT 4.3 calculation with S-10 full symmetry angular quadratures, in remedy of the ray effect at the edge flux distributions of the square. But the computing time of the TWODET is about 4 times more than that of the DOT 4.3. In the problem of vacuum boundaries just outside of the source region in an absorbing square, the results of the TWODET calculation are shown severely anomalous ray effects, due to the sudden discontinuity between the source and the vacuum, like as the results of the DOT 4.3 calculation. In the probelm of an external source in an absorbing square in which a highly absorbing medium is added, the results of the TWODET calculation with K-3, L-4 show a good ones like as, somewhat more than, that of the DOT 4.3 calculation with S-10.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.148-158
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• 2018

This study investigated the effect of the grinding media of a ball mill under various conditions on the raw material of copper powder during the milling process with a simulation of the discrete element method. Using the simulation of the three-dimensional motion of the grinding media in the stirred ball mill, we researched the grinding mechanism to calculate the force, kinetic energy, and medium velocity of the grinding media. The grinding behavior of the copper powder was investigated by scanning electron microscopy. We found that the particle size increased with an increasing rotation speed and milling time, and the particle morphology of the copper powder became more of a plate type. Nevertheless, the particle morphology slightly depended on the different grinding media of the ball mill. Moreover, the simulation results showed that rotation speed and ball size increased with the force and energy.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.316-326
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of cleavages on indirect tensile strength (ITS) of the granite. Brazilian disc tests and ring tests with three different hole sizes were performed. 2D DEM (Discrete Element Method) simulation was employed to further understand the failure process during the tests and the mechanism behind. Results show that ITS decreases across hardway, grain and rift cleavage. Measured average ITS from ring tests is about 2.5 ~ 6.4 times of those measured from Brazilian disc tests, and it decreases with increasing ratio of diameters of inner hole and specimen. Failure pattern in ring tests is influenced by both hole size and relative positions of cleavages parallel and perpendicular to the loading direction.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.93-105
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• 2012

This paper compares the two- and three-dimensional (2D and 3D) approaches for the numerical determination of the equivalent mechanical properties of fractured rock masses. Both orthogonally-fractured model and discrete fracture networks (DFN) were used for the geometry and 2D models were cut in various directions from 3D model to compare their mechanical properties. Geological data were loosely based on the data available from Sellafield, UK. Analytical method based on compliance tensor transformation was used for investigation in orthogonally fractured rock and numerical experiments were conducted on fractured rock mass with DFN geometry. It is shown that 2D approach always overestimates the elastic modulus of fractured rock masses by a factor of up to around two because fractures are assumed to be perpendicular to the model plane in 2D problems. Poisson ratios tend to have larger values in 2D analysis while there is opposite trend in some sections. The study quantitatively demonstrates the limitation of the 2D approach that uses the simplified model from true 3D geometry.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.27 no.11
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• pp.39-45
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• 2011

This study presents the thermal behaviors of glass beads-rubber mixtures depending on the volumetric fraction of each constituent and relative size between them. The transient plane source method is used to measure the effective thermal conductivity of mixtures. The discrete element method (DEM) and the thermal network model are integrated to investigate the particle-scale mechanism of heat transfer in granular packings. Results show that 1) the effective thermal conductivity decreases as the rubber fraction increases, and 2) the relative size between two solid particles dominates the spatial configuration of inter-particle contact condition that in tum determines the majority of heat propagation path through particle contacts. For the mixtures whose volumetric fraction of rubber is identical, the less conductive materials (e.g., rubber particles) with a large size facilitate heat transfer in granular materials. The experimental results and particle-scale observation highlight that the thermal conduction behavior is dominated not only by the volumetric fraction but also the spatial configuration of each constituent.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.1-39
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• 2016

The finite element method (FEM), discrete element method (DEM), and Discontinuous deformation analysis (DDA) are among the standard numerical techniques applied in computational geo-mechanics. However, in some cases there no possibility for modelling by traditional finite analytical techniques or other mesh-based techniques. The solution presented in the current study as a completely Lagrangian and mesh-free technique is smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH). This method was basically applied for simulation of fluid flow by dividing the fluid into several particles. However, several researchers attempted to simulate soil-water interaction, landslides, and failure of soil by SPH method. In fact, this method is able to deal with behavior and interaction of different states of materials (liquid and solid) and multiphase soil models and their large deformations. Soil indicates different behaviors when interacting with water, structure, instrumentations, or different layers. Thus, study into these interactions using the mesh based grids has been facilitated by mesh-less SPH technique in this work. It has been revealed that the fast development, computational sophistication, and emerge of mesh-less particle modeling techniques offer solutions for problems which are not modeled by the traditional mesh-based techniques. Also it has been found that the smoothed particle hydrodynamic provides advanced techniques for simulation of soil materials as compared to the current traditional numerical methods. Besides, findings indicate that the advantages of applying this method are its high power, simplicity of concept, relative simplicity in combination of modern physics, and particularly its potential in study of large deformations and failures.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.456-466
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• 2017

This work investigated the particle morphology change to difference in milling media in a metal based composite fabrication process using a stirred ball mill with ball behavior of DEM simulation. A simulation of the three dimensional motion of grinding media in the stirred ball mill for the research of grinding mechanism to clarify the force, kinetic energy, and medium velocity of grinding media were calculated. In addition, the rotational speed of the stirred ball mill was changed to the experimental conditions for the composite fabrication, and change of the input energy was also calculated while changing the ball material, the flow velocity, and the friction coefficient under the same conditions. As the rotating speed of the stirred ball mill increased, the impact energy between the grinding media to media, media to wall, and media and the stirrer increased quantitatively. Also, we could clearly analyze the change of the particle morphology under the same experimental conditions, and it was found that the ball behavior greatly influences in the particle morphology changes.