• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.615-620
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• 2018

In order to analyze the healing effectiveness of rock salt cracks affected by the applied stresses and time, we used the ultrasonic technology to monitor the ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) variations for different initial stress-damaged rock salts during self-healing experiments. The self-healing experiments were to create different conditions to improve the microcracks closure or recrystallized, which the self-healing effect of damaged salt specimens were analyzed during the recovery period about 30 days. We found that: The ultrasonic pulse velocity of the damaged rock salts increases rapidly during the first 9 days recovery, and the values gradually increase to reach constant values after 30 days. The damaged value and the healed value were identified based on the variation of the wave velocity. The damaged values of the specimens that are subject to higher initial damage stress are still keeping in large after 30 days recovery under the same recovery condition It is interesting that the damage and the healing were not in the linear relationship, and there also existed a damage threshold for salt cracks healing ability. When the damage degree is less than the threshold, the self-healing ratio of rock salt is increased with the increase in damage degree. However, while the damage degree exceeds the threshold, the self-healing ratio is decreased with the increase in damage.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.25 no.11
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• pp.53-60
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• 2009

Construction of a tunnel induces rock masses damage around the tunnel. The degree of damage produced on rock masses will affect on the mechanical and hydraulic behaviors of the rock masses. In this paper, P wave velocity measured by cross-hole test was used to assess rock masses damage around the test tunnel. Initiation of source signal was carried out using mechanical impact at the source installed borehole. In consequence, the generated P wave signal was low noise and apparent wave form, which allows accurate pick-up of first arrival time. From the test, the region where rock damage is expected shows relatively low P wave velocity. In addition, with multiple points of P wave velocity measurement along each cross-hole, two dimensional P wave tomography was obtained. The tomography provides apparent view of the rock damage behind the tunnel. The measured P wave velocity was correlated with features of rock masses, porosity and Q value.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.269-294
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• 2017

This study aimed to realize the creation of fuzzy stochastic damage to describe reliability more essentially with the analysis of harmony of damage conception, probability and fuzzy degree of membership in interval [0,1]. Two kinds of fuzzy behaviors of damage development were deduced. Fuzzy stochastic damage models were established based on the fuzzy memberships functional and equivalent normalization theory. Fuzzy stochastic damage finite element method was developed as the approach to reliability simulation. The three-dimensional fuzzy stochastic damage mechanical behaviors of Jianshan mine slope were analyzed and examined based on this approach. The comprehensive results, including the displacement, stress, damage and their stochastic characteristics, indicate consistently that the failure foci of Jianshan mine slope are the slope-cutting areas where, with the maximal failure probability 40%, the hazardous Domino effects will motivate the neighboring rock bodies' sliding activities.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.499-511
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• 2015

The creep property of salt rock significantly influences the long-term stability of the salt rock underground storage. Triaxial creep tests were performed to investigate the creep behavior of salt rock. The test results indicate that the creep of salt rock has a nonlinear characteristic, which is related to stress level and creep time. The higher the stress level, the longer the creep time, the more obvious the nonlinear characteristic will be. The elastic modulus of salt rock decreases with the prolonged creep time, which shows that the creep damage is produced for the gradual expansion of internal cracks, defects, etc., causing degradation of mechanical properties; meanwhile, the creep rate of salt rock also decreases with the prolonged creep time in the primary creep stage, which indicates that the mechanical properties of salt rock are hardened and strengthened. That is to say, damage and hardening exist simultaneously during the creep of salt rock. Both the damage effect and the hardening effect are considered, an improved Maxwell creep model is proposed by connecting an elastic body softened over time with a viscosity body hardened over time in series, and the creep equation of which is deduced. Creep test data of salt rock are used to evaluate the reasonability and applicability of the improved Maxwell model. The fitting curves are in excellent agreement with the creep test data, and compared with the classical Burgers model, the improved Maxwell model is able to precisely predict the long-term creep deformation of salt rock, illustrating our model can perfectly describe the creep property of salt rock.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.77-94
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• 2016

A forked tunnel, as a special complicated underground structure, is composed of big-arch tunnel, multi-arch tunnel, neighborhood tunnels and separate tunnels according to the different distances between two separate tunnels. Due to the complicated process of design and construction, surrounding jointed rock mass stability of the big-arch tunnel which belongs to the forked tunnel during excavation is a hot issue that needs special attentions. In this paper, an elasto-plastic damage constitutive model for jointed rock mass is proposed based on the coupling method considering elasto-plastic and damage theories, and the irreversible thermodynamics theory. Based on this elasto-plastic damage constitutive model, a three dimensional elasto-plastic damage finite element code (D-FEM) is implemented using Visual Fortran language, which can numerically simulate the whole excavation process of underground project and perform the structural stability of the surrounding rock mass. Comparing with a popular commercial computer code, three dimensional fast Lagrangian analysis of continua (FLAC3D), this D-FEM has advantages in terms of rapid computing process, element grouping function and providing more material models. After that, FLAC3D and D-FEM are simultaneously used to perform the structural stability analysis of the surrounding rock mass in the forked tunnel considering three different computing schemes. The final numerical results behave almost consistent using both FLAC3D and D-FEM. But from the point of numerically obtained damage softening areas, the numerical results obtained by D-FEM more closely approach the practical behaviors of in-situ surrounding rock mass.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.315-325
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• 2001

A series of laboratory tests was conducted to observe damage process by stress and to understand characteristics of permeability related with rock damage. Rock specimens which were composed of the Cretaceous medium grained granites were experienced of damage stress between 65% and 95% of the compressive strength. Rock deformation by damage process was identified with the elastic wave velocity test. Relationship between rock damage and permeability change was also analyzed by water injection test in the laboratory. According to the results of the tests, damage tends to be occurred from stress level of 80% of the compressive strength and it reduces elastic wave velocity. The damaged specimens with stress more than 80% of the compressive strength showed crack density more than 0.6 and persistent length with good connectivity of cracks. They also have higher permeability than that of specimens with crack density less than 0.6. Considered with the above results, the rock specimens used in this study were fully damaged from stress level of 80% of the compressive strength. Crack initiation and propagation by damage caused good connectivity of cracks through rock specimen. These damage process, therefore, brought high permeability coefficient through water flow conduit in the rock specimen.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.499-505
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• 1994

Local stress concentrations often cause new micro-damaging induced by a healed pre-existing defects, and the macro-damage is developed by propagation and coalescence of the micro-damage. The micro-damage causes non-linear deformation in rock material. Considerable work has also been applied to describe mathematically the behavior of cracks under stress. Although these mathematical models can usually be made to agree quite well with the measured data, but it is questionable how well the models describe real rock including microcracks in pre-failure state, such as their micro-damage mechanisms. In the present study, micro-damage initiation and propagation in granitic rock under increasing stress were observed directly. Furthermore, a stress analysis considering the bisphere model was carried out using the homogenization theory to analyze the mechanics of the stress-induced micro-damage.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2000.03b
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• pp.411-418
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• 2000

With the limited amount of budget and time, it is required to determine the priority of investment when there are a large number of hazardous slopes. In this paper, the Rock Slope Risk Rating System is developed based on the combination of the hazard of failure and the damage potential. By applying the proposed rating system to 253 rock slopes in Korean National Highway, it was possible to determine the priority of investment on road cut slopes.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.325-334
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• 2016

Rock salt is a near-perfect material for gas storage repositories due to its excellent ductility and low permeability. Gas storage in rock salt layers during gas injection and gas production causes the stress redistribution surrounding the cavity. The triaxial cyclic loading and unloading tests for rock salt were performed in this paper. The elastic-plastic deformation behaviour of rock salt under cyclic loading was observed. Rock salt experienced strain hardening during the initial loading, and the irreversible deformation was large under low stress station, meanwhile the residual stress became larger along with the increase of deviatoric stress. Confining pressure had a significant effect on the unloading modulus for the variation of mechanical parameters. Based on the theory of elastic-plastic damage mechanics, the evolution of damage during cyclic loading and unloading under various confining pressure was described.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.149-166
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• 2024

The acoustic emission (AE) technique is utilized to estimate the rock failure status in underground spaces. Understanding the AE characteristics under loading conditions is essential to ensure the reliability of AE monitoring. The AE characteristics depend on the material properties (p-wave velocity, density, UCS, and Young's modulus) and damage stages (stress ratio) of the target rock mass. In this study, two groups of granite specimens (based on the p-wave velocity regime) were prepared to explore the effect of material properties on AE characteristics. Uniaxial compressive loading tests with an AE measurement system were performed to investigate the effect of the rock properties using AE indices (count index, energy index, and amplitude index). The test results were analyzed according to three damage stages classified by the stress ratio of the specimens. Count index was determined to be the most suitable AE index for evaluating rock mass stability.