• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2005

Analogue physical modelling using granular materials (i.e., sandbox experiments) has been applied with great success to a number of geological problems at various scales. Such physical experiments can also be simulated numerically with the Discrete Element Method (DEM). In this study, we apply the DEM simulation to the collision between the Indian subcontinent and the Eurasian Plate, one of the most significant current tectonic processes in the Earth. DEM simulation has been applied to various kinds of dynamic modelling, not only in structural geology but also in soil mechanics, rock mechanics, and the like. As the target of the investigation is assumed to be an assembly of many tiny particles, DEM simulation makes it possible to treat an object with large and discontinuous deformations. However, in DEM simulations, we often encounter difficulties when we examine the validity of the input parameters, since little is known about the relationship between the input parameters for each particle and the properties of the whole assembly. Therefore, in our previous studies (Yamada et al.,2002a,2002b,2002c), we were obliged to tune the input parameters by trial and error. To overcome these difficulties, we introduce a numerical biaxial test with the DEM simulation. Using the results of this numerical test, we examine the validity of the input parameters used in the collision model. The resulting collision model is quite similar to the real deformation observed in eastern Asia, and compares well with GPS data and in-situ stress data in eastern Asia.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.139-149
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• 1997

Electrical resistivity monitoring methods were adopted to detect groundwater table change in alluvium. Numerical modelling test using finite element method(FEM) and field resisfivity monitoring were conducted in the study. The field monitoring data were acquired in the alluvium deposit site in Jeong-Dong Ri, Geum River where pumping test had been conducted continuously for 20 days to make artificial changes of groundwater table. The unit distance of the electrode array was 4m and 21 fixed electrodes were applied in numerical calculation and field data acquisition. "Modified Wenner" and dipole-dipole array configurations were used in the study. The models used in two-dimensional numerical test were designed on the basis of the simplifving geological model of the alluvium in Jeong Dong Ri, Geum River. Numerical test results show that the apparent resistivity pseudosections were changed in the vicinity of the pootion where groundwater table was changed. Furthermore, there are some apparent resistivity changes in the boundary between aquifer and crystalline basement rock which overlays the aquifer. The field monitoring data also give similar results which were observed in numerical tests. From the numerical test using FEM and field resistivity monitoring observations in alluvium site of Geum River, the electrical monitoring method is proved to be a useful tool for detecting groundwater behavior including groundwater table change. There are some limitations, however, in the application of the resistivity method only because the change of groundwater table does not give enough variations in the apparent resistivity pseudosections to estimate the amount of groundwater table change. For the improved detection of groundwater table changes, it is desirable to combine the resistivity method with other geophysical methods that reveal the underground image such as high-resolution seismic and/or ground penetrating radar surveys.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.101-111
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• 2006

In case of drilled shafts installed by drilling through soft overburden onto a strong rock, the piles can be regarded as end-bearing elements and their working load is determined by the safe working stress on the pile shaft at the point of minimum cross-section or by code of practice requirements. Drilled shafts drilled down for some depth into weak or weathered rocks and terminated within these rocks act partly as friction and partly as end-bearing piles. The base resistance component can contribute significantly to the ultimate capacity of the pile. However, the shaft resistance is typically mobilized at considerably smaller pile movements than that of the base. In addition, the base response can be adversely affected by any debris that is left in the bottom of the socket. The reliability of base response therefore depends on the use of a construction and inspection technique which leaves the socket free of debris. This may be difficult and costly to achieve, particularly in deep sockets, which are often drilled under water or drilling slurry. As a consequence of these factors, shaft resistance generally dominates pile performance at working loads. The efforts to improve the prediction of drilled shaft pile performance are therefore primarily concerned with the complex mechanisms of shaft resistance development. In this study, the numerical analyses are carried out to investigate the behavior characteristics of side of rock socketed drilled shafts varying the loading condition at the pile head. The difference of behavior characteristics of side resistance is also evaluated with the effects of modelling of asperity.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.169-189
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• 2024

In the current work, a series of three-dimensional finite element analyses have been carried out to understand the behaviour of pre-existing single piles and pile groups to adjacent Shield TBM tunnelling by considering various reinforcement conditions. The numerical modelling has analysed the effect of the pile cutting, ground reinforcement and pile cap reinforcement. The analyses concentrate on the ground settlements, the pile head settlements, the axial pile forces and the shear stress transfer mechanism at the pile-soil interface. In all cases of the pile tips supported by weathered rock, the distributions of shear stresses presented a similar trend. Also, when the pile tips were cut, tensile forces or compressive forces were induced on the piles depending on the relative positions of the piles. Furthermore, when the pile tips are supported by weathered rock, approximately 70% of the load is supported by surface friction, and only the remaining 30% is supported by the pile tip. Furthermore the final settlement of the piles without reinforcement showed approximately 70% more settlement than the piles for which ground reinforcement is considered. It has been found that the ground settlements and the pile settlements are heavily affected by the pile cutting and reinforcement conditions. The behaviour of the single pile and group piles, depending on the pile cutting, conditions of ground and pile cap reinforcement, has been extensively examined and analysed by considering the key features in great details.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.411-427
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• 2007

Reliability in tunnel analysis is necessary to accomplish technically sound design and economical construction. For this, a thorough understanding of the construction procedure including the ground-support interaction has to be obtained. This paper describes a proper modelling technique to simulate the behavior of the steel fiber reinforced shotcrete (SFRS) which maintain the supporting capability in post-failure regime. The additional supporting effect of the steel support was also verified by 3-D analyses and a new load distribution factor were proposed. The use of the plastic moment limit (PML) alone can eliminate the occurrence of the awkwardly high tensile stress in the shotcrete and can successfully model the post-peak ductile behavior of the SFRS. But with this method, moment is limited whenever the stress caused by moment reaches tensile strength of the shotcrete irrespective of the stress by axial force. Therefore, it was necessary to find a more comprehensive method which can reflect the influence of the moment and axial force. This can be accomplished by the proper use of "liner element" which is the built-in model in FLAC. In this model, the peak and residual strength as well as the uniaxial compressive strength of the SFRS can be specified. Analyses were conducted with these two models on the 2-lane road tunnels excavated in class IV and V rock mass and results were compared with the conventional elastic beam model. Results showed that both models can reflect the fracture toughness of the SFRS which could not be accomplished by the elastic beam model.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.323-336
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• 2003

Recently, the development of tunnel reinforcement method has been required relating to the shallow tunnelling in soft ground. In this study, the improvement method on tunnel stability is proposed by evaluating the efficiency of face reinforcement which enables to control extrusion of advance core, however, it is often neglected in urban tunnelling under the poor ground conditions. Systematic pre-confinement ahead of the face improves the tunnel stability, subsequently, displacement of the crown and surface settlement can be restrained by proper method. 3-dimensional numerical analysis including horizontal reinforcement modelling on a face is applied to estimate the behaviour of a tunnel in relation to the ground and reinforcement conditions. Consequently, extrusion at the face decreases significantly after using the horizontal reinforcement and the effect of reinforcement is much increased in case of applying the supplemental reinforcement ahead of the face together. Especially, confinement effect around the tunnel and the core is proved by means of the core reinforcement in poor ground conditions.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.13-25
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• 2000

A three-dimensional discrete fracture network model based on probabilistic characteristics of fracture geometry and transmissivity was designed to calculate the conductivity tensor and to estimate theanisotropy of conductivity. The conductivities, $K_p$, obtained from the numerical simulation of single-holepacker test corresponded well to those from the field tests. From this, it can be concluded that thefracture network model designed in this study can represent hydraulic characteristics of in-situ fractured rock mass. Block-scale conductivities, $K_b$, estimated from the modelling of steady-state flow through the REV-scale block were ranged between the arithmetic mean and harmonic mean of theconductivity estimates from packer tests. The conductivity along north-south direction was 1.4 timesgreater than that along the east-west direction. It was concluded that the anisotropy of conductivitywas insignificant. It was also found that there was a little correlation between $K_b$ and $K_p$. This would be to that the conductivities from the packer test simulation was strongly dependent on thetransmissivity and the number of fractures within the packer test intervals.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.28 no.12
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• pp.17-25
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• 2012

FEM requires the stress-strain relationship equations for numerical analyses. However, most formulations for the stress-strain relationship published up to the present are not satisfactory enough to properly express all the levels from the small strain to the peak. Tatsuoka and Shibuya (1991) suggested a new single formulation applicable not only to a wide range of geo-materials from soft clay to soft rock, but also to a wide range of strain levels from $10^{-6}$ to $10^{-2}$. The plain strain compression test is carried out to seven samples of research standard sand specimens and two samples of glass beads, which have been used at world-renowned research institutes. In this study, strains of the maximum principal stress (${\sigma}_1$) and the minimum principal stress (${\sigma}_3$) were thoroughly measured from $10^{-6}$ to $10^{-2}$, and the result, applied to Tatsuoka and Shibuya's new formulation, coincided closely with the measured data of the stress-strain relationship from the small strain to the peak.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.629-640
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• 2019

The investigation of retaining wall structures behavior under dynamic loads is considered as one of important parts for designing such structures. Generally, the performance of these structures is under the influence of the environment conditions and their geometry. The aim of this research is to design retaining wall structures based on smart and optimal systems. The use of accuracy and speed to assess the structures under different conditions is one of the important parts sought by designers. Therefore, optimal and smart systems are able to have better addressing these problems. Using numerical and coding methods, this research investigates the retaining wall structure design under different dynamic conditions. More than 9500 models were constructed and considered for modelling design. These designs include height and thickness of the wall, soil density, rock density, soil friction angle, and peak ground acceleration (PGA) variables. Accordingly, a neural network system was developed to establish an appropriate relationship between data to obtain safety factor (SF) of retaining walls under different seismic conditions. Different parameters were analyzed and the effect of each parameter was assessed separately. According to these analyses, the structure optimization was performed to increase the SF values. The optimal and smart design showed that under different PGA conditions, the structure performance can be appropriately improved while utilization of the initial (or basic) parameters leads to the structure failure. Therefore, by increasing accuracy and speed, smart methods could improve the retaining structure performance in controlling the wall failure. The intelligent design process of this study can be applied to some other civil engineering applications such as slope stability.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.382-393
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• 2020

The engineered barrier system of high-level radioactive waste disposal must maintain its performance in the long term, because it must play a role in slowing the rate of leakage to the surrounding rock mass even if a radionuclide leak occurs from the canister. In particular, it is very important to clarify gas dilation flow phenomenon clearly, that occurs only in a medium containing a large amount of clay material such as a bentonite buffer, which can affect the long-term performance of the bentonite buffer. Accordingly, DECOVALEX-2019 Task A was conducted to identify the hydraulic-mechanical mechanism for the dilation flow, and to develop and verify a new numerical analysis technique for quantitative evaluation of gas migration phenomena. In this study, based on the conventional two-phase flow and mechanical behavior with effective stresses in the porous medium, the hydraulic-mechanical model was developed considering the concept of damage to simulate the formation of micro-cracks and expansion of the medium and the corresponding change in the hydraulic properties. Model verification and validation were conducted through comparison with the results of 1D and 3D gas injection tests. As a result of the numerical analysis, it was possible to model the sudden increase in pore water pressure, stress, gas inflow and outflow rate due to the dilation flow induced by gas pressure, however, the influence of the hydraulic-mechanical interaction was underestimated. Nevertheless, this study can provide a preliminary model for the dilation flow and a basis for developing an advanced model. It is believed that it can be used not only for analyzing data from laboratory and field tests, but also for long-term performance evaluation of the high-level radioactive waste disposal system.