• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.505-520
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• 2022

In recent years, geotextile-encased gravel columns (usually called stone columns) have become a popular method to increasing soil shear strength, decreasing the settlement, acceleration of the rate of consolidation, reducing the liquefaction potential and increasing the bearing capacity of foundations. The behavior of improved loose base-soil with gravel columns under shear loading and the shear stress-horizontal displacement curves got from large scale direct shear test are of great importance in understanding the performance of this method. In the present study, by performing 36 large-scale direct shear tests on sandy base-soil with different fine-content of zero to 30% in both not improved and improved with gravel columns, the effect of the presence of gravel columns in the loose soils were investigated. The results were used to predict the shear stress-horizontal displacement curve of these samples using support vector machines (SVM). Variables such as the non-plastic fine content of base-soil (FC), the area replacement ratio of the gravel column (Arr), the geotextile encasement and the normal stress on the sample were effective factors in the shear stress-horizontal displacement curve of the samples. The training and testing data of the model showed higher power of SVM compared to multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural network in predicting shear stress-horizontal displacement curve. After ensuring the accuracy of the model evaluation, by introducing different samples to the model, the effect of different variables on the maximum shear stress of the samples was investigated. The results showed that by adding a gravel column and increasing the Arr, the friction angle (ϕ) and cohesion (c) of the samples increase. This increase is less in base-soil with more FC, and in a proportion of the same Arr, with increasing FC, internal friction angle and cohesion decreases.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.449-464
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• 2023

Advanced nonlinear effective stress constitutive models are started to be frequently used in one-dimensional (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) site response analysis for assessment of porewater generation and liquefaction potential in soft soil deposits. The emphasis of this research is on the assessment of the implementation of this category of models at the element stage. Initially, the performance of a coupled porewater pressure (PWP) and constitutive models were evaluated employing a catalogue of 40 unidirectional cyclic simple shear tests with a variety of relative densities between 35% and 80% and effective vertical stresses between 40 and 80 kPa. The authors evaluated three coupled constitutive models (PDMY02, PM4SAND and PDMY03) using cyclic direct simple shear tests and for decide input parameters used in the model, procedures are recommended. The ability of the coupled model to capture dilation as strength is valuable because the studied models reasonably capture the cyclic performance noted in the experiments and should be utilized to conduct effective stress-based 1D and 2D site response analysis. Sandy soils may become softer and liquefy during earthquakes as a result of pore-water pressure (PWP) development, which may have an impact on seismic design and site response. The tested constitutive models are mathematically coupled with a cyclic strain-based PWP generation model and can capture small-strain stiffness and large-strain shear strength. Results show that there are minor discrepancies between measured and computed excess PWP ratios, indicating that the tested constitutive models provide reasonable estimations of PWP increase during cyclic shear (r_u) and the banana shape is reproduced in a proper way indicating that dilation and shear- strain behavior is well captured by the models.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.13-26
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• 2006

The purpose of this study is to examine the method of liquifaction potential occuring at the reclaimed land in Incheon district and to compare the result obtained by the method based on the earthquake of 6.5 magnitude. In addition, the effects of ground improvement and liquifaction potential were evaluated on the basis of SPT and CPT, which have been performed before and after the compaction pilot test. As a result, we realized that the bigger the energy of dynamic compaction test was, the better effect we got. After the dynamic compaction test, as the strength of ground increased, the safe factor also increased. It was evaluated that the method of dynamic compaction improved the seismic performance. Accordingly, the method of the quality control of reclaimed land based on dynamic compaction method was presented.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.23 no.8
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• pp.5-16
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• 2007

The stone column method is widely used in Europe as an alternative to conventional pile foundations. Several benefits of using the stone column method include sound performance, low cost, expediency of construction, and liquefaction resistance among others. Recently, geosynthetic-encased stone column approach has been developed to improve its load carrying capacity through increasing confinement effect. Although such a concept has been successfully applied in practice, fundamentals of the method have not been fully explored. This paper presents the results of an investigation on the load carrying capacity of geogrid-encased stone column using a series of 2D finite element analyses. A parametric study was then conducted for influencing factors such as effect of geogrid encasement, encasement length, geogrid strength, among others. The results of the analyses indicated improved short- and long-term load carrying capacity of the geogrid-encased stone column method has advantages over the conventional stone column method without encasing.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.11 no.8
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• pp.5-14
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• 2010

Recent researches on the behavior of gravelly soils have been focused mainly on the relative density or on the gravel content. And some researchers presented the liquefaction behavior based on the relative density whereas others based on the gravel content of gravelly soil. However the relative densities vary with gravel content and relative density is not enough to fully express the behavior of gravelly soils. Therefore in this research state parameter which considers void ratio and effective confining pressure is introduced and Steady State Line(SSL) of gravelly soils for various gravel content are determined by undrained triaxial tests in order to express the behavior of gravelly soils. From the research the position of SSL moved downward with gravel content. And the same density of soil showed dense sand behavior or loose sand behavior depending upon the confining pressure. Especially relative density 80% of gravelly soil showed loose sand behavior under high confining pressure. However the gravelly soils with similar state parameters showed similar stress behaviors. It can bee seen that state parameter is useful tool to evaluate undrained behavior of gravelly soils. Also state parameter and undrained strength showed good correlations.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.10
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• pp.393-405
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• 2020

Various geotechnical information is required to evaluate the stability of the ground and a foundation once liquefaction occurs due to earthquakes, such as the soil strength and groundwater level. The results of the Standard Penetration Test (SPT) conducted in Korea are registered in the National Geotechnical Information Portal System. If geotechnical information for a non-drilled area is needed, geostatistics can be applied. This paper is about the feasibility of obtaining ground information by the Empirical Bayesian Kriging (EBK) method and the Inverse Distance Weighting Method (IDWM). Esri's ArcGIS Pro program was used to estimate these techniques. The soil strength parameter of the drilling area and the level of groundwater obtained from the standard penetration test were cross-validated with the results of the analysis technique. In addition, Multichannel Analysis of Surface Waves (MASW) was conducted to verify the techniques used in the analysis. The Buk-gu area of Pohang was divided into 1.0 km×1.0 km and 110 zones. The cross-validation for the SPT N value and groundwater level through EBK and IDWM showed that both techniques were suitable. MASW presented an approximate section area, making it difficult to clearly grasp the distribution pattern and groundwater level of the SPT N value.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.28 no.7
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• pp.31-40
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• 2012

In most design codes, soils are classified as either sandy or clayey soils, and appropriate design equations for each soil type are used to estimate their soil behaviour. However, sand-fine mixtures, which are typically referred to as intermediate soils, are somewhere at the middle of sandy or clayey soils, and therefore a unified interpretation of soil behaviour is necessary. In this paper, a series of cyclic shear tests were carried out for three different combinations of sand-fine mixtures with various fines content. Silica-sand mixture and fines (Iwakuni natural clay, Tottori silt, kaolinite) were mixed together with various mass ratios, while paying attention to the changes of void ratios expressed in terms of sand structure. The cyclic shear strengths of the mixtures below the threshold fines content were examined with the increasing fines contents. As a result, as the fines contents increased, their cyclic deviator stress ratios decreased for dense samples while it increased for loose samples. Additionally, cyclic deviator stress ratio of the mixtures was estimated using the concept of equivalent granular void ratio.