• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.577-595
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• 2023

A dynamic triaxial discrete element numerical model of lightweight soil was established using the discrete element method to study the microscopic mechanism of expanded polystyrene (EPS) particles in the soil under cyclic loading. The microscopic parameters of the discrete element model of the lightweight soil were calibrated depending on the dynamic triaxial test hysteresis curves. Based on the calibration results, the effects of the EPS particles volume ratio and amplitude on the contact force, displacement field, and velocity field of the lightweight soil under different accumulated strains were studied. The results showed that the hysteresis curves of lightweight soil exhibit nonlinearity, hysteresis, and strain accumulation. The strain accumulated in remolded soil is mainly tensile strain, and that in lightweight soil is mainly compressive strain. As the volume ratio of EPS particles increased, the contact force first increased and then decreased, and the displacement and velocity of the particles increased accordingly. With an increase in amplitude, the dynamic stress of the particle system increased, and the accumulation rate of the dynamic strain of the samples also increased. At 5% compressive strain, the contact force of the particles changed significantly and the number of particles deflected in the direction of velocity also increased considerably. These results indicated that the cemented structure of the lightweight soil began to fail at a compressive strain of 5%. Thus, a compressive strain of 5% is more reasonable than the dynamic strength failure standard of lightweight soil.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.245-251
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• 2019

When an offshore foundation is exposed to waves and currents, local scour could develop around a pile and even lead to structural failure. Therefore, understanding and predicting the scour due to sediment transport around foundations are important in the engineering design. In this study, the flow and scour around a monopole foundation exposed to a current were investigated using a method that coupled the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and discrete element method (DEM). The open source computation fluid dynamics library OpenFOAM and a sediment transport library were coupled in the OpenFOAM platform. The incipient motion of the particle was validated. The flow fields and sediment transport around the monopole were simulated. The scour depth development was simulated and compared with existing experimental data. For the upstream scour hole, the equilibrium scour depth could be reproduced qualitatively, and it was underestimated by about 23%.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.353-367
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• 2023

The construction of a protective embankment is a suitable strategy to stop and control high-energy rock blocks' impacts during the rockfall phenomenon. In this paper, based on the discrete element numerical method, by modeling an existing embankment reinforced with geogrid, its stability status under the impact of a rock block with two types of low and high kinetic energy, namely 2402 and 4180 kJ, respectively, has been investigated. The modeling results show that the use of geogrid has caused the displacement in the front and back of the embankment to decrease by more than 30%. In this case, the reinforced embankment has stopped the rock block earlier. The displacements obtained from the DEM modeling are compared with the displacements measured from an actual practical experiment to evaluate the results' validity. Comparison between the results shows that the displacement values are close together, while the maximum percentage error in previous studies by an analytical method and the finite element method was 76.4% and 36.6%, respectively. Therefore, the obtained results indicate the discrete numerical method's high ability compared to other numerical and analytical methods to simulate and design the geogrid-reinforced soil embankment under natural disasters such as rockfall with a minor error.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.65-74
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• 2020

In earth pressure balance (EPB) shield TBM tunnelling, the application of soil conditioning which improves properties of the excavated muck by additives injection, is generally used for enhancing the performance of TBM. Therefore it is important to apply the soil conditioning in the numerical model which simulates excavation performance of TBM equipment, but related studies on a method that simulates soil conditioning are insufficient to date. Accordingly, in this study, an laboratory pressurized vane test apparatus was devised to evaluate the characteristics of conditioned soil. Using the apparatus, the vane shear tests were performed on foam-conditioned soil with different shear rates, and the test was numerically simulated with discrete element method (DEM). Finally, the contact properties of particles in DEM were determined by comparing the results of test and analysis, and it indicates that the applicability of pressurized vane test and DEM model for reproducing soil conditioning in TBM excavation model with DEM.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.117-127
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the effect of in-situ rock stresses on the deformability and permeability of fractured rocks. Geological data were taken from the site investigation at Forsmark, Sweden, conducted by Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Man-agement Company (SKB). A set of numerical experiments was conducted to determine the equivalent mechanical properties (essentially, elastic moduli and Poisson's ratio) and permeability, using a Discrete Fracture Network-Discrete Element Method (DFN-DEM) approach. The results show that both mechanical properties and permeability are highly dependent on stress because of the hyperbolic nature of the stiffness of fractures, different closure behavior of fractures, and change of fluid pathways caused by deformation. This study shows that proper characterization and consideration of in-situ stress are important not only for boundary conditions of a selected site but also for the understanding of the mechanical and hydraulic behavior of fractured rocks.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.274-283
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• 2000

A dynamic explicit finite element code for simulating sheet forming processes has been developed. The code utilizes the discrete Kirchhoff shell element and contact force is treated by a conventional penalty method. In order to reduce the computational cost, a new and robust contact searching algorithm has been developed and implemented into the code. In the method, a hierarchical structure of tool segments is built for each tool at the initial stage of the analysis. hierarchical structure is built in a way to divide a box to 8 sub-boxes, 2 in each direction, until the lowest level of the hierarchical structure contains exactly one segment of the tool or empty. Then at each time step, contact is checked from the box to sub-boxes hierarchically for each node. Comparisons of computational results of various examples with the existing ones show the validity of the method.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.329-342
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• 2008

A local behavior law, which includes elasticity, plasticity and damage, is developed in a three dimensional numerical model for concrete. The model is based on the Discrete Element Method (DEM)and the computational implementation has been carried out in the numerical Code YADE. This model was used to study the response of a concrete slab impacted by a rigid missile, and focuses on the extension of the compacted zone. To do so, the model was first used to simulate compression and hydrostatic tests. Once the local constitutive law parameters of the discrete element model were calibrated, the numerical model simulated the impact of a rigid missile used as a reference case to be compared to an experimental data set. From this reference case, simulations were carried out to show the importance of compaction during an impact and how it expands depending on the different impact conditions. Moreover, the numerical results were compared to empirical predictive formulae for penetration and perforation cases, demonstrating the importance of taking into account the local compaction process in the local interaction law between discrete elements.

• Journal of KSNVE
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.632-642
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• 1998

A method based on finite element discretization is developed for optimizing the polarization profile of PVDF film to create the modal transducer for specific modes. Using this concept, one can design the modal transducer in two-dimensional structure having arbitrary geometry and boundary conditions. As a practical means for implementing this polarization profile without repoling the PVDF film the polarization profile is approximated by optimizing electrode patterns, lamination angles, and poling directions of the multi-layered PVDF transducer. This corresponds to the approximation of a continuous function using discrete values. The electrode pattern of each PVDF layer is optimized by deciding the electrode of each finite element to be used or not. Genetic algorithm, suitable for discrete problems, is used as an optimization scheme. For the optimization of each layers lamination angle, the continuous lamination angle is encoded into discrete value using binary 5 bit string. For the experimental demonstration, a modal sensor for first and second modes of cantilevered composite plate is designed using two layers of PVDF films. The actuator is designed based on the criterion of minimizing the system energy in the control modes under a given initial condition. Experimental results show that the signals from residual modes are successfully reduced using the optimized multi-layered PVDF sensor. Using discrete LQG control law, the modal peaks of first and second modes are reduced in the amount of 12 dB and 4 dB, resepctively.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.256-264
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• 2004

The granular flow has been numerically studied by using DEM(Discrete Element Method). The eve교 particle is checked if it collides neighbor particles, and the next motion of the particle is predicted. The computing time has been drastically reduced by improving the collision check against neighboring particles. The comparison of the present method with ail experiment for the vibrating floor problem shows the good accuracy. The broken tower problem has been calculated to show the good comparison with the other computational result. This DEM(Discrete Element Method) can be a useful tool for constructing the constitute equation of the continuum approach of the granular flow.

• Bulletin of the Korean Mathematical Society
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• v.57 no.1
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• pp.219-244
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• 2020

In this paper, we approximate the solution of the coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equations by using a fully discrete finite element scheme based on the standard Galerkin method in space and implicit midpoint discretization in time. The proposed scheme guarantees the conservation of the total mass and the energy. First, a priori error estimates for the fully discrete Galerkin method is derived. Second, the existence of the approximated solution is proved by virtue of the Brouwer fixed point theorem. Moreover, the uniqueness of the solution is shown. Finally, convergence orders of the fully discrete Crank-Nicolson scheme are discussed. The end of the paper is devoted to some numerical experiments.