• Journal of the Korean Society of Fisheries and Ocean Technology
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.39-49
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• 2019

Acoustics are increasingly regarded as a remote-sensing tool that provides the basis for classifying and mapping ocean resources including seabed classification. It has long been understood that details about the character of the seabed (roughness, sediment type, grain-size distribution, porosity, and material density) are embedded in the acoustical echoes from the seabed. This study developed a sophisticated yet easy-to-use technique to discriminate seabed characteristics using a split beam echosounder. Acoustic survey was conducted in Tongyeong waters, South Korea in June 2018, and the verification of acoustic seabed classification was made by the Van Veen grab sampler. The acoustic scattering signals extracted the seabed hardness and roughness components as well as various seabed features. The seabed features were selected using the principal component analysis, and the seabed classification was performed by the K-means clustering. As a result, three seabed types such as sand, mud, and shell were discriminated. This preliminary study presented feasible application of a sounder to classify the seabed substrates. It can be further developed for characterizing marine habitats on a variety of spatial scales and studying the ecological characteristic of fishes near the habitats.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers Conference
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• 2003.08a
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• pp.10-17
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• 2003

Acoustic and pressure type seabed installed wave sensors have advantage in observing long period infra-gravity wave and tsunami, while buoy type wave gauges which measure acceleration of the moored buoy motion are not able to detect long period waves. That's why most of the Japanese coastal wave observation sensors are seabed installed typed ones. Nationwide Japanese coastal wave observation systems with seabed installed sensors are gradually clarifying long-period tsunami profiles and infra-gravity wave characteristics (Nagai.et.al., 1996, 1997,2000,2002a,2002b). (omitted)

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.49 no.6
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• pp.479-490
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• 2016

Seabed drilling system has recently been used to drill seafloor mineral resources. This case report highlights the procedure and result of sea-trial of seabed drilling system at off-shore of Japan on March, 2016 as well as briefs an international-technical trend of seabed drilling system. In case of having less than 100 m drill depth, seabed drilling system is favorable for seafloor mineral deposits which are mostly distributed within a narrow district and situated between 1000~3000 m water depth, compared with vessel-mounted drilling system. The system is featured by the remotely-operated drill gear, which has top drives, drill strings and mud system on it. The core samples are generally recovered to ship with seabed driller after a dive. In this sea-trail, recovery rate of core samples averagely shows about 55% and the recovered rocks mostly correspond to fresh and/or weak-altered basalt. In case of drilling hydrothermal ore deposit, the recovery rate would be lower than 55% because of the fragile nature of ores. Alternatively it is used to collect cutting chips through riser or bins in order to increase the recovery rates. Recently a reverse circulation method is taken considered to acquire the better cutting-chips. Three-leg type outrigger system and four-leg type leveling system are the competing landing-instruments of seabed drill system. However the landing efficiency using these gears has to be further monitored due to lack of case reports.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.477-486
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• 2012

High-resolution bathymetry and physico-chemical properties of manganese nodules were explored to identify the relationship between morphological features and nodule occurrences in the KR1, one of the Korean contract nodule fields located in the NE Pacific. The high-resolution seabed mapping showed that the southwestern sector of the KR1 (KR1-1) was relatively deeper than the northeastern sector (KR1-2) which is occupied by small-scale seamounts. In terms of nodule occurrence, manganese nodules in the KR1-1 were comparatively larger (2-4 cm) with rough surface (t-type) and discoidal shapes (D-type), while those in the KR1-2 were generally small (<2 cm) with smooth surface (s-type) and irregular shapes (I-type). In addition, the nodules in the KR1-1 had higher contents of Cu, Mn and Ni. Such connections of water depths to nodule appearances and metal contents are commonly observed in the Pacific nodule fields. On the other hand, the nodules in the KR1-2 tend to be controled by morphological features. The seamounts in the KR1-2 might continuously provide rock fragments as new nuclei of manganese nodules. As a result, the nodules could not grow over than 2 cm and showed the shapes of a newbie (i.e., smooth surface and irregular shapes). As a result, our observations indicate that occurrence features of manganese nodules could be subjected to water depths and seabed morphology simultaneously.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.321-327
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• 2018

To classify seafloor sediments using a probabilistic neural network (PNN), the frequency-dependent characteristics of broadband acoustic scattering, which make it possible to qualitatively categorize seabed type, were collected from three different geographical areas in Korea. The echo data samples from three types of seafloor sediment were measured using a chirp sonar system operating over a frequency range of 20-220 kHz. The spectrum amplitudes for frequency responses of 35-75 kHz were fed into the PNN as input feature parameters. The PNN algorithm could successfully identify three seabed types: mud, mud/shell and concrete sediments. The percentage probabilities of the three seabed types being correctly classified were 86% for mud, 66% for mud/shell and 72% for concrete sediment.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.202-207
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• 2020

A track-type underwater construction robot (URI-R) was developed by the Korea Institute of Ocean Science & Technology. Because URI-R uses tracks to move on the seabed, insufficient ground strength may hinder its movement. For smooth operation of URI-R on the seabed, it is important to determine the geotechnical properties of the seabed. To determine these properties, standard penetration test (SPT), cone penetration test (CPT), and sampling are used on land. However, these tests cannot be applied on the seabed due to a high cost owing to the vessel, crane, sampler, and analysis time. To overcome these problems, a free fall cone penetration tester (FFCPT) is being developed. The FFCPT is a device that acquires the geotechnical properties during impact/penetration/finish phases by free fall in water. Depth information is crucial during soil data acquisition. As the FFCPT cannot measure the penetration depth directly, it is estimated indirectly using acceleration. The estimated penetration depth was verified by results of real tests conducted on land.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.94-102
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• 2021

This study addresses a method for 3D reconstruction using acoustic data with heterogeneous sonar devices: Forward-Looking Multibeam Sonar (FLMS) and Profiling Sonar (PS). The challenges in sonar image processing are perceptual ambiguity, the loss of elevation information, and low signal to noise ratio, which are caused by the ranging and intensity-based image generation mechanism of sonars. The conventional approaches utilize additional constraints such as Lambertian reflection and redundant data at various positions, but they are vulnerable to environmental conditions. Our approach is to use two sonars that have a complementary data type. Typically, the sonars provide reliable information in the horizontal but, the loss of elevation information degrades the quality of data in the vertical. To overcome the characteristic of sonar devices, we adopt the crossed installation in such a way that the PS is laid down on its side and mounted on the top of FLMS. From the installation, FLMS scans horizontal information and PS obtains a vertical profile of the front area of AUV. For the fusion of the two sonar data, we propose the probabilistic approach. A likelihood map using geometric constraints between two sonar devices is built and a monte-carlo experiment using a derived model is conducted to extract 3D points. To verify the proposed method, we conducted a simulation and field test. As a result, a consistent seabed map was obtained. This method can be utilized for 3D seabed mapping with an AUV.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.681-688
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• 2020

Approximately 6,000 chemicals are transported through the sea, including hazardous and noxious substances (HNS), which cause marine pollution and are harmful to marine life. The HNS discharged into the sea during the maritime transportation process undergoes physical and chemical changes on the sea surface and in seawater, and some types of HNS sink and are deposited on the seabed. The HNS deposited on the seabed adversely affects the benthic ecosystem, and hence, it is desirable to detect, treat, and recover the HNS on the seabed. Therefore, this study was conducted to analyze the performance requirements that should be considered as the top priority when developing a mechanical system for recovering the HNS deposited on the seabed. Various types of existing dredging devices used for collecting and recovering pollutants from river beds and seabeds were investigated, and 10 performance indices for the mechanical devices were selected. The new performance requirements for the development of the seabed-deposited HNS recovery system were proposed using performance indices. By considering the depth of water in domestic seaports, some of the performance requirements of the mechanical system for recovering deposited HNS from the seabed were obtained as follows: production rate (50-300 ㎥/hr), maximum operation depth (50 m), sediment type (most forms), percentage of solids (10 % or higher), horizontal operating accuracy (±10 cm), limiting currents (3-5 knots). These performance requirements are expected to be useful in the conceptual and basic design of mechanical systems for recovering seabed-deposited HNS.

• Magazine of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.38 no.5
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• pp.85-94
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• 1996

For the geotechnical analysis in the construction and Deign of the coastal structures, one of the most important factors is the existence of waves. The dynamic behavior and deformation of the seabed subjected to wave load must be considered. It is expected that the soil behavior in the seabed subjected to cyclic wave load is much different from that on the ground subjected to dynamic forces such as earthquake. The purposes of this study are as follows ; Firstly, to provide a testing method to generate wave loads in the laboratory and measuring oscillatory pore water pressures in the unsaturated marine silty sand specimen, Secondly, to analyze the mechanism of wave induced pore water pressures and liquefaction potentials under the conditions in the testing. It is shown that the test set-up manufactured especially for the test is good to generate oscillatory wave pressures to the specimen with sine wave type. From the results of this study, it is understood that the pore water pressure due to induced waves is not accumulated as the wave number increases but is periodically varied with wave passage on still water surface. The magnitude of pore water pressures measured tends to be diminished radically with a certain time lag under the action of both high and low waves as depth increases.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.515-524
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• 2014

The Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology has acquired detailed biological, chemicophysical, and geological data in the northeastern Pacific through a manganese nodule program since 1983. Plenty of manganese nodules were collected to estimate the amount of resources by free-fall grab and box corer. The collected manganese nodules have been archived systematically in the rock and mineral storage section of the Library of Marine Samples (LIMS) since 2012. The LIMS provides essencial information on the stored samples including sample name, nodule type, sampling location, depth, and equipment. Although a high quality database of the information system is under construction, the samples have tagged information for manganese nodules like chemical composition, morphology, weight, size, abundance, and photograph. In this study, we attempted to provide information on the well-organized and easily accessible archived manganese nodule samples for future studies and to introduce the usefulness of the LIMS.