• Journal of the Korean Society for Geothermal and Hydrothermal Energy
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.12-21
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• 2022

Steam assisted gravity drainage(SAGD) is a process that drills well in the underground oil sands layer, injects hightemperature steam, lowers the viscosity of buried bitumen, and recovers it to the ground. Recently, direct contact steam generator(DCSG) is being developed to maximize steam efficiency for SAGD process. The DCSG requires high technology to achieve pressurized combustion and steam generation in accordance with underground pressurized conditions. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a combustion technology that can control the heat load and exhaust gas composition. In this study, process analysis of high-pressurized DCSG was conducted to apply oxygen enrichment technology in which nitrogen of the air was partially removed for increasing steam production and reducing fuel consumption. As the process analysis conditions, methane as the fuel and normal air or oxygen enriched air as the oxidizing agent were applied to high-pressurized DCSG process model. A simple combustion reaction program was used to calculate the property variations for combustion temperature, steam ratio and residual heat in exhaust gas. As a major results, the steam production efficiency of DCSG using the pure oxygen was about 6% higher than that of the normal air due to the reducing nitrogen in the air. The results of this study will be used as operating data to test the demonstration device.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.157-164
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• 2010

Recently, the number of shallow tunnel construction increases to improve the structural safety and environment-friendliness. In semi-cut-and-cover Method, ground is excavated to the crown arch level and arch slab is set to backfill before the excavation of lower face. In this study, laboratory model tests was performed to clarify the behavior of the arch slab constructed perpendicular to the slope. Results show that Arch slab is affected by perpendicular to the slope and bedrocks. Negative moment at the upper part of the arch slab at hillside and positive moment at the upper part at the other side are generated as perpendicular to the slope increases. Reaction load at the hillside support was larger than that at the other side.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.19-25
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• 2022

Nuclear Power Plants (NPP) should be designed to have sufficient safety margins and to ensure seismic safety against earthquake that may occur during the plant life time. After the 9.12 Gyeongju earthquake accident, the structural integrity of nuclear power plants due to the beyond design basis earthquake is one of key safety issues. Accordingly, it is necessary to conduct structural integrity evaluations for domestic NPPs under beyond design basis earthquake. In this study, the Level 3 LBB (Leak Before Break) evaluation was performed by considering the beyond design basis earthquake for the surge line of a OPR1000 plant of which design basis earthquake was set to be 0.2g. The beyond design basis earthquake corresponding to peak ground acceleration 0.4g at the maximum stress point of the surge line was considered. It was confirmed that the moment behaviors of the hot leg and pressurized surge nozzle were lower than the maximum allowable loading in moment-rotation curve. It was also confirmed that the LBB margin could be secured by comparing the LBB margin through the Level 2 method. It was judged that the margin was secured by reducing the load generated through the compliance of the pipe.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.29 no.5C
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• pp.199-206
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• 2009

This paper presents full scale model tests on the various types of model piles carried out to estimate the behavior of laterally loaded steel-concrete composite piles. Subgrade-reaction spring system was developed to simulate the reaction of ground in laboratory condition. In addition, lateral behavior of piles under working load condition was estimated using composite loading system, which is available for independent loading in vertical and horizontal direction. Steel-concrete composite piles showed higher efficiency in lateral resistance rather than drilled shaft made of reinforced concrete. The lateral resistance of composite pile was larger than the summation of steel pile and concrete pile due to the composite effect by steel casing. The effect of shear key or strength of concrete on the behavior of composite pile was examined. The substitution of reinforcing bar by steel casing was also investigated.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.419-425
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• 2009

Recently, the number of shallow tunnel construction increases to improve the structural safety and environment-friendliness. In Semi-Cut and Cover Method, ground is excavated to the crown arch level and braced rib arch is set to backfill before the excavation of lower face. Semi-Cut and Cover Method is proposed to solve the problems occurred by the conventional Cut and Cover Method, such as unstability, high-cost and the large cutting slope to be reinforced. In this paper, the behaviors of Braced Rib Arch in shallow tunnel excavated by semi-cut and cover method was studied. Model tests in 1:10 Scale were performed in real construction sequences. The distance between supports of rib arch was 1.8 m and the length of spacer was 1.0 m. the size of test pit was 4.0 m (width)$\times$3.3 m (length) 4.0 m (height) in dimension. Tests results show that backfill load acting on arch was smaller than that in the conventional Open-Cut Method.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.39 no.11
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• pp.33-40
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• 2023

This study explores the performance of pile foundations in highly expansive soil, incorporating magnesium oxide-based refractory materials. A controlled model chamber, housing a fixed pile, was utilized to induce ground expansion through fused magnesia (FM). The investigation focused on measuring the vertical displacement of FM-sand mixtures and the axial load on the pile in relation to depth and time. The study varied the amount of FM content (FM_c) at 30%, 50%, and 70%. The upward movement exhibited an augmentation with increasing FM_c, tapering off with depth as accumulation progressed toward the mixture surface. Compression and tensile forces were both evident along the pile for FM_c at 30% and 50%, while only a tensile force was observed at an FM_c of 70%. These results offer valuable insights for the analysis of pile behavior within FM-sand mixtures.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.213-222
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• 2024

Determination of jointed rock mass properties plays a significant role in the design and construction of underground structures such as tunneling and mining. Rock mass classification systems such as Rock Mass Rating (RMR), Rock Mass Index (RMi), Rock Mass Quality (Q), and deformation modulus (Em) are determined from the jointed rock masses. However, parameters of jointed rock masses can be affected by the tunnel depth below the surface due to the effect of the in situ stresses. In addition, the geomechanical properties of rocks change due to the effect of metamorphism. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to apply correlation analysis to investigate the relationships between rock mass properties and some parameters related to the depth of the tunnel studied. For this purpose, the field work consisted of determining rock mass parameters in a tunnel alignment (~7.1 km) at varying depths from 21 m to 431 m below ground surface. At the same excavation depths, thirty-seven rock types were also sampled and tested in the laboratory. Correlations were made between vertical stress and depth, horizontal/vertical stress ratio (k) and depth, k and Em, k and RMi, k and point load index (PLI), k and Brazilian tensile strength (BTS), Em and uniaxial compressive strength (UCS), UCS and PLI, UCS and BTS. Relationships were significant (significance level=0.000) at the confidence interval of 95% (r = 0.77-0.88) between the data pairs for the rocks taken from depths greater than 166 m where the ratio of horizontal to vertical stress is between 0.6 and 1.2. The in-situ stress parameters affected rock mass properties as well as metamorphism which affected the geomechanical properties of rock materials by affecting the behavior of minerals and textures within rocks. This study revealed that in-situ stress parameters and metamorphism should be reviewed when tunnel studies are carried out.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.417-426
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• 2024

Shield tunneling method is widely used to build tunnels in complex geological environment. Stability control of tunnel face is the key to the safety of projects. To improve the excavation efficiency or perform equipment maintenance, the excavation chamber sometimes is not fully filled with support medium, which can reduce the load and increase tunneling speed while easily lead to ground collapse. Due to the high risk of the face failure under non-fully support mode, the tunnel face stability should be carefully evaluated. Whether compressive air is required for compensation and how much air pressure should be provided need to be determined accurately. Based on the upper bound theorem of limit analysis, a non-fully support rotational failure model is developed in this study. The failure mechanism of the model is verified by numerical simulation. It shows that increasing the density of supporting medium could significantly improve the stability of tunnel face while the increase of tunnel diameter would be unfavorable for the face stability. The critical support ratio is used to evaluate the face failure under the nonfully support mode, which could be an important index to determine whether the specific unsupported height could be allowed during shield tunneling. To avoid of face failure under the non-fully support mode, several charts are provided for the assessment of compressed air pressure, which could help engineers to determine the required air pressure for face stability.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.5-21
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• 2015

An energy pile is a novel type of ground heat exchangers (GHEX's) which sets up heat exchange pipes inside a pile foundation, and allows to circulate a working fluid through the pipe for exchanging thermal energy with the surrounding ground stratum. Using existing foundation structure, the energy pile can function not only as a structural foundation but also as a GHEX. In this paper, six full-scale energy piles were constructed in a test bed with various configurations of the heat exchange pipe inside large-diameter cast-in-place piles, that is, three parallel U-type heat exchangers (5, 8 and 10 pairs), two coil type heat exchangers (with a 500 mm and 200 mm pitch), and one S-type heat exchanger. During constructing the energy piles, the constructability of each energy pile was evaluated with consideration of the installation time, the number of workers and any difficulty for installing. In order to evaluate the thermal performance of energy piles, the thermal performance tests were carried out by applying intermittent (8 hours operating-16 hours pause) artificial cooling operation to simulate a cooling load for commercial buildings. Through the thermal performance tests, the heat exchange rates of the six energy piles were evaluated in terms of the heat exchange amount normalized with the length of energy pile and/or the length of heat exchange pipe. Finally, the economic feasibility of energy pile was evaluated according to the various types of heat exchange pipe by calculating demanded expenses per 1 W/m based on the thermal performance test results along with the market value of heat exchange pipes and labor cost.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.67-76
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• 2018

This study reviews three eco-friendly energy towns with hybrid thermal energy supply systems and borehole thermal energy storage (BTES) in Canada and Denmark. The district heating and cooling systems were designed by using multi-source energy for the higher efficiency and reliability as well as environment. ADEU (Alexandra District Energy Utility) located at the developing area in the city of Richmond, Canada was designed to supply district energy with the installation of 726 borehole heat exchangers (BHEs) and a backup boiler using natural gas. DLSC (Drake Landing Solar Community) located in the town of Okotoks, Canada is a district system to store solar thermal energy underground during the summer season by seasonal BTES with 144 BHEs. Brædstrup Solpark district heating system located in Denmark has been conducted energy supply from multiple energy sources of solar thermal, heat pump, boiler plants and seasonal BTES with 48 BHEs. These systems are designed based on social and economic benefits as well as nature-friendly living space according to the city based energy perspective. Each system has the energy center which distribute the stored thermal energy to each house for heating during the winter season. The BHE depth and ground thermal storage volume are designed by the heating and cooling load as well as the condition of ground water flow and thermophysical properties of the ground. These systems have been proved the reliance and economic benefits by providing consistent energy supply with competitive energy price for many years. In addition, the several expansions of the service area in ADEU and Brædstrup Solpark have been processed based on energy supply master plan. In order to implement this kind of project in our country, the regulation and policy support of government or related federal organization are required. As well as the government have to make a energy management agency associated with long-term supply energy plan.