• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• 제13권5호
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• pp.881-892
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• 2017

Design and management of concrete slabs in concrete-faced rock-fill dams are crucial issues for stability and overall dam safety since cracks in the concrete face induced by stress, shrinkage, and deterioration can cause severe leakage from the reservoir into the dam. Especially, the increase of dam height to a certain level to enhance the storage capacity and to improve hydraulic stability can lead to undesirable deformation behavior and stress distribution in the existing dam body and in the concrete slabs. In such conditions, simulation of a concrete slab with a numerical method should involve the use of an interface element because the behavior of the concrete slab does not follow the behavior of the dam body when the dam body settles due to the increase of dam height. However, the interfacial properties between the dam body and the concrete slab have yet to be clearly defined. In this study, construction sequence of a 125 m high CFRD in South Korea is simulated with commercial FDM software. The proper interfacial properties of the concrete slab are estimated based on a comparison to monitored vertical displacement history obtained from the concrete slab. Possibility of shear strength failure under the critical condition is investigated based on the simplified model. Results present the significance of the interfacial properties of the concrete slab.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• 제24권5호
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• pp.443-456
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• 2021

Structural design of the vertical displacements and shear strains in the earth fill (EF) dams has great importance in the structural engineering problems. Moreover, far fault earthquakes have significant seismic effects on seismic damage performance of EF dams like the near fault earthquakes. For this reason, three dimensional (3D) earthquake damage performance of Oroville dam is assessed considering different far-fault ground motions in this study. Oroville Dam was built in United States of America-California and its height is 234.7 m (770 ft.). 3D model of Oroville dam is modelled using FLAC3D software based on finite difference approach. In order to represent interaction condition between discrete surfaces, special interface elements are used between dam body and foundation. Non-reflecting seismic boundary conditions (free field and quiet) are defined to the main surfaces of the dam for the nonlinear seismic analyses. 6 different far-fault ground motions are taken into account for the full reservoir condition of Oroville dam. According to nonlinear seismic analysis results, the effects of far-fault ground motions on the nonlinear seismic settlement and shear strain behaviour of Oroville EF dam are determined and evaluated in detail. It is clearly seen that far-fault earthquakes have very significant seismic effects on the settlement-shear strain behaviour of EF dams and these earthquakes create vital important seismic damages on the swelling behaviour of dam body surface. Moreover, it is proposed that far-fault ground motions should not be ignored while modelling EF dams.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• 제29권1호
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• pp.65-77
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• 2022

Determination of strength properties of intact rock using artificial cores has been considered in recent years. In this study, some relationships for estimating the static properties of dolomudstone cores of the Asmari reservoir were presented using artificial cores prepared from cuttings of two wells, southwest of Iran. For this purpose, first natural cuttings (NC) and 33 cores including dolomite limestone (dolomudstone), anhydrite and anhydrite dolomite were prepared between depths of 1714 and 2208 meters. Petrographic, physical, mechanical and dynamic tests were performed on cores, NC and artificial cuttings (AC) which was prepared from the residuals of dolomudstone cores. For preparing the artificial cores, the average porosity of the dolomudstone cores was considered and determined using four methods. Artificial and natural cuttings were classified as dolomite limestone and dolomite limestone to calcareous dolomite, respectively. Using ordinary Portland cement (OPC), water, AC and NC artificial cores were prepared. Results of evaluating the proposed relationships using statistical criteria showed that the static properties of the artificial cores can be used to predict the static properties of the dolomudstone cores.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• 제34권1호
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• pp.43-49
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• 2023

Knowledge of minimum horizontal stress (S_hmin) is a significant step in determining full stress tensor. It provides crucial information for the production of sand, hydraulic fracturing, determination of safe mud weight window, reservoir production behavior, and wellbore stability. Calculating the S_hmin using indirect methods has been proved to be awkward because a lot of data are required in all of these models. Also, direct techniques such as hydraulic fracturing are costly and time-consuming. To figure these problems out, this work aims to apply the long-short-term memory (LSTM) algorithm to S_hmin time-series prediction. 13956 datasets obtained from an oil well logging operation were applied in the models. 80% of the data were used for training, and 20% of the data were used for testing. In order to achieve the maximum accuracy of the LSTM model, its hyper-parameters were optimized significantly. Through different statistical indices, the LSTM model's performance was compared with with other machine learning methods. Finally, the optimized LSTM model was recommended for S_hmin prediction in the well logging operation.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• 제21권1호
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• pp.63-71
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• 2020

Strength anisotropy is a typical feature of thin-bedded rock masses and their strength will be degraded subjected to water immersion effect. Such effect is crucial for the operation of hydropower plant because the impoundment lifts the water level of upstream reservoir and causes the rock mass of nearby slopes saturated. So far, researches regarding mechanical property of natural thin-bedded rock masses and their strength variation under water immersion based on field test method are rarely reported. This paper focuses on a thin-bedded stratified rock mass and carries out field test to investigate the mechanical property and strength variation characteristics. The field test is highlighted by samples which have a large shear dimension of 0.5 m*0.5 m, representing a more realistic in-situ situation than small size specimen. The test results confirm the anisotropic nature of the concerned rock mass, whose shear strength of host rocks is significantly larger than that of bedding planes. Further, the comparison of shear strength parameters of the thin-bedded rock mass under natural and saturated conditions show that for both host rocks and bedding planes, the decreasing extent of cohesion values are larger than friction values. The quantitative results are then adopted to analyze the influence of reservoir impoundment of a hydropower plant on the surrounding rock mass stability of diversion tunnels which are located in the nearby slope bank. It is evaluated that after reservoir impoundment, the strength degradation induced incremental deformations of surrounding rock mass of diversion tunnels are small and the stresses in lining structure are acceptable. It is therefore concluded that the influences of impoundment are small and the stability of diversion tunnels can be still achieved. The finings regarding field test method and its results, as well as the numerical evaluation conclusions are hoped to provide references for rock projects with similar concerns.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• 제11권4호
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• pp.571-585
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• 2016

The crest of the Pubugou central core rockfill dam (CCRD) cracked in the first and second impounding periods. To evaluate the safety of the Pubugou CCRD, an inversion analysis of the constitutive model parameters for rockfill materials is performed based on the in situ deformation monitoring data. The aim of this work is to truly reflect the deformation state of the Pubugou CCRD and determine the causes of the dam crest cracks. A novel real-coded genetic algorithm based upon the differences in gene fragments (DGFX) is proposed. It is used in combination with the radial based function neural network (RBFNN) to perform the parameters back analysis. The simulated settlements show good agreements with the monitoring data, illustrating that the back analysis is reasonable and accurate. Furthermore, the deformation gradient of the dam crest has been analysed. The dam crest has a great possibility of cracking due to the uncoordinated deformation, which agrees well with the field investigation. The deformation gradient decreases to the value lower than the critical one and reaches a stable state after the second full reservoir.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• 제5권5호
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• pp.463-483
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• 2013

Considering the influences of fluid penetration, casing, excavation processes of wellbore and perforation tunnels, the seepage-deformation finite element model of oil and gas well coupled with perforating technique is established using the tensile strength failure criterion, in which the user-defined subroutine is developed to investigate the dynamic evolvement of the reservoir porosity and permeability. The results show that the increases of perforation angle and decreases of perforation density lead to a higher fracture initiation pressure, while the changes of the perforation diameter and length have no evident influences on the fracture initiation pressure. As for initiation location for the fracture in wellbore, it is on the wellbore face while considering the presence of the casing. By contrast, the fractures firstly initiate on the root of the tunnels without considering casing. Besides, the initial fracture position is also related with the perforation angle. The fracture initiation position is located in the point far away from the wellbore face, when the perforation angle is around $30^{\circ}$; however, when the perforation angle is increased to $45^{\circ}$, a plane fracture is initiated from the wellbore face in the maximum horizontal stress direction; no fractures was found around perforation tunnels, when the angel is close to $90^{\circ}$. The results have been successfully applied in an oilfield, with the error of only 1.1% comparing the fracture initiation pressure simulated with the one from on-site experiment.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• 제14권1호
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• pp.9-17
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• 2018

Brazilian splitting tests, uniaxial compression tests and triaxial compression tests are carried out on the coal samples cored from Shanxi group $II_1$ coal seam of Jiaozuo coal mine, Henan province, China, to obtain their property parameters. Considering the bedding has notable effect on the property parameter of coal, the samples with different bedding angles are prepared. The effects of bedding on the anisotropic characteristics of the coal seam are investigated. A geological geomechanical model is built based on the geology characteristics of the Jiaozuo coal mine target reservoir to study the effects of bedding on the fracture propagations during hydraulic fracturing. The effects of injection pressure, well completion method, in-situ stress difference coefficient, and fracturing fluid displacement on the fracture propagations are investigated. Results show bedding has notable effects on the property parameters of coal, which is the key factor affecting the anisotropy of coal. The hydraulic cracks trends to bifurcate and swerve at the bedding due to its low strength. Induced fractures are produced easily at the locations around the bedding. The bedding is beneficial to form a complicated fracture network. Experimental and numerical simulations can help to understand the effects of bedding on hydraulic fracturing in coalbed methane reservoirs.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• 제6권2호
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• pp.153-172
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• 2014

In order to investigate the effect of different perforation angles (the angle between the perforation direction and the maximum horizontal principal stress) on the fracture initiation and propagation during hydraulic fracturing of highly deviated well in oil & gas saturated formation, laboratory experiments of the hydraulic fracturing had been carried out on the basis of non-dimensional similar criteria by using 400^3 $mm^3$ cement cubes. A plane fracture can be produced when the perforations are placed in the direction of the maximum horizontal principal stress. When the perforation angle is $45^{\circ}$, the fractures firstly initiate from the perforations at the upper side of the wellbore, and then turn to the maximum horizontal principal stress direction. When the well deviation angle and perforation angle are both between $45^{\circ}$ and $90^{\circ}$, the fractures hardly initiate from the perforations at the lower side of the wellbore. Well azimuth (the angle between the wellbore axis and the maximum horizontal principal stress) has a little influence on the fracture geometries; however it mainly increases the fracture roughness, fracture continuity and the number of secondary fractures, and also increases the fracture initiation and propagation pressure. Oriented perforating technology should be applied in highly deviated well to obtain a single plane fracture. If the well deviation angle is smaller, the fractures may link up.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• 제38권3호
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• pp.307-317
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• 2024

To get a better understanding of the effect of drying-wetting cycles (DWC) on the mechanical behaviors of silty clay hiving different initial moisture content (IMC), the direct shear tests were performed on sliding band soil taken from a reservoirinduced landslide at the Three Gorges Reservoir area. The results indicated that, as the increasing number of DWC, the shear stress-displacement curves type changed from strain-hardening to strain-softening, and both the soil peak strengths and strength parameters reduced first and then nearly remain unchanged after a certain number of DWC. The effects of DWC on the cohesion were predominated that on the internal friction angle. The IMC of 17% is regarding as the critical moisture content, and the evolution laws of both peak shear strength and strength parameters presented a reversed 'U' type with the rising of the IMC. Based on it, a strength deterioration evolution model incorporating the influence of IMC and DWC was developed to describe the total degradation degree and degradation rate of strength parameters, and the degradation of strength parameters caused by DWC could be counterbalanced to some extent as the soil IMC close to critical moisture content. The microscopic mechanism for the soil strength caused by the IMC and DWC were discussed separately. The research results are of great significance for further understanding the water-weakening mechanicals of the silty clay subjected to the water absorption/desorption.