• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.47-56
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• 2013

There are many technical problems, which can not be resolved by the concept of saturated soil mechanics. Unsaturated soils show an apparent cohesion due to negative pore pressure and relatively lower permeability due to entrapped air compared to saturated soils. The determination of engineering properties of soils with various moisture content is very important to evaluate shear strength and stability of natural and engineered soils. So various researches should be made on unsaturated soils. Especially, sandy soils are widely distributed near Nakdong river, one of the four rivers where Restoration Projects were carried out. Many structures such as dams, flood control facilities, detention facilities and reservoirs have been built in this area. In this study, unsaturated triaxial compressive tests were conducted on sands or silty sands at Nakdong river in order to provide their fundamental characteristics for design and construction of geotechnical structures. As a result of the tests, the maximum deviator stress increased as the confining stress and matric suction increased. The cohesion increased non-linearly as the matric suction increased, but the angle of internal friction was marginally changed.

• Magazine of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.96-104
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• 1981

In order to investigate the characteristics of the shear strength of the unsaturated cohesive soils which has mean characters of sand and clay widely used for banking, I selected soil samples from An-sung district and, against it, performed direct shear test and unconfined compression test changing grain size, compaction energy and moisture content and also performed triaxial compression test under optimum moisture content. The results are as follows; 1.As the passing percent of the No. 200 sieve increased from 23.6% to 56.1%, cohesion increased from 0. 202kg/cm2 to 0. 398kg/cm2 under the direct shear test and from 0.38 kg/cm2 to 1. 05kg/cm2 under the tria4al compression test, internal friction angle decreased from 44. 78$^{\circ}$ to 34. 34$^{\circ}$ under the direct shear test and from 31. 88$^{\circ}$ to 13. 31$^{\circ}$ under the triaxial compression test. 2.Cohesion showed it's maximum value around OMC and internal friction angle showed a tendency to increase according to the decrease of water content but it's increasing ratio was relatively slow. 3.Decreasing ratio of cohesion and internal friction angle was relatively sensitive according to the decrease of compaction energy. 4.The smaller of the vertical stress and the coarser of the grain size of samples, changing of the volume showed a tendency to increase and as the increase of water content, the shear displacement (dh) at failure shear stress ($\tau$f) showed maximum and the $\tau$f-dh curve was gentle. 5.To synthesize the results of the direct shear test and the triaxial compression test, cohesion showed higher under the triaxial compression test and internal friction angle showed a tendeney to appear higher under the direct shear test. It seems that we can get correspondent results by removing the side friction of mold with soils and adjusting the vertical stress and shearing speed under the direct shear test.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.435-445
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• 2019

A series of element tests with different drainage conditions and strain rates were performed on compacted unsaturated non-plastic silt in unconfined conditions. Soil samples were compacted at water contents from dry to wet of optimum with the degree of saturation varying from 24 to 59.5% while maintaining the degree of compaction at 80%. The tests performed were shear infiltration tests in which specimens had constant net confining pressure, pore air pressure was kept drained and constant, just before the shear process pore water pressure was increased (and kept constant afterwards) to decrease matric suction and to start water infiltration. In constant water content tests, specimens had constant net confining pressure, pore air pressure was kept drained and constant whereas pore water pressure was kept undrained. As a result, the matric suction varied with increase in axial strain throughout the shearing process. In both cases, maximum shear strength was obtained for specimens prepared on dry side of optimum moisture content. Moreover, the gradient of stress path was not affected under different strain rates whereas the intercept of failure was changed due to the drainage conditions implied in this study.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.123-133
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• 2001

Since most of soil slopes are in an unsaturated state, it is necessary to consider the unsaturated characteristics of soil slopes, in order to obtain more reasonable results. Therefore in this study we supplemented a slope stability analysis program to consider them, based on the concept of limit equilibrium. We also applied an optimization technique to search for a failure surface. Besides, we carried out experiments to obtain the unsaturated soil properties required in the analysis with weathered granite soils. We formulated a nonlinear apparent cohesion relationship with the matrix suction to be able to apply the unsaturated shear strength characteristics to the stability analysis. In addition, we intended to obtain more accurate soil water characteristic curves(SWCC) by measuring the change in volume of the specimen in the SWCC tests. As a result, we could appropriately assess the change of the safety factor according to the rainfall intensity and duration, by considering the variation of suction, permeability, and shear strength caused by the infiltration of rainfall into slopes.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.37-48
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• 2017

Soil-water characteristic curve (SWCC) has been widely used to estimate the shear strength and coefficient of permeability for unsaturated soils. In general, it is divided into the drying path in which the water is discharged and the wetting path in which the water is permeated, and it has a hysteresis indicating different suctions at the same volumetric water content. In reality the field behavior of unsaturated soils is much closer to the wetting path during the infiltration. The drying path has been practically used for various analyses because obtaining the wetting path takes longer than the drying path. Although many approaches for estimating wetting path have been studied till now, these are complex and do not fit well. Therefore, a simple method for estimating wetting path based on empirical approach in this study is proposed in unsaturated soils, and a feasibility study is conducted as well.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.5C
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• pp.255-262
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• 2008

In order to investigate the strength anisotropy of compacted materials, a series of unsaturated and saturated-drained triaxial compression tests was performed. Three different orientation angles of the axial direction of samples with respect to the horizontal plane were investigated: ${\delta}=0$, 45 and 90 degrees. As the results showed, the suction rate on the strength of the unsaturated specimen was not influenced by ${\delta}$. And the effect of the angle ${\delta}$ on the strength was more pronounced on unsaturated specimen as compared to saturated specimen. Moreover, a new procedure was proposed to take into account the effect of the angle ${\delta}$ on the shear strength of unsaturated soils.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.181-194
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• 1999

Both the chemical components and the physical and mechanical properties of the compacted and undisturbed weathered granite soils were estimated to investigate the influences of the degree of weathering and saturation on the shear strength. The weathered granite soils used in this study were taken from six different sites in Korea. The results showed that the shear strength of weathered granite soil decreased with increasing the degree of weathering and saturation. Under the normal stresses less that 40kPa, the shape of Mohr-Coulomb failure envelope followed curved or hyperbolic relationship and a half of cohesion value obtained by the common shear test was observed. Using the Sueoka's method, the values of CWI were ranged from 21.5 to 31.26 which can be characterized as a completely weathered granite soil. Large decrease in shear strength and remarkable variation in dilatancy were observed in saturated granite soil compared to unsaturated soil. It was also found that the shear strength of undisturbed weathered granite soil of Pungam site can be expressed approximately by the equation of ${(\tau)_{sat}= 1.0(\tau)_{unsat}-12.48}$ and this equation can be extended to the other sites considered in this study.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.28 no.9
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• pp.23-30
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• 2012

This paper is research results of slope stability analysis associated with seepage infiltration for unsaturated soil in debris-flow occurrence slopes. Site investigations were carried out in two slopes, located at Inje in Kangwon province where debris flow occurred in 2006 and at Yangpyung in Kyeunggi province where it occurred in 2010. For unsaturated soil sampled at the zone of debris-flow initiation, soil water characteristic curves with tempe pressure cells and shear strength parameters with newly designed shear strength apparatus were obtained respectively. The commertially available software SEEP/W was used to analyze seepage infiltration in unsaturated soil, based on their properties obtained from test results and the actual rainfall data at the moment of debris flow occurrence, and slope stability analysis with the program of SLOPE/W, associated with results of seepage analysis, was performed to simulate slope failure. As results of this research, seepage infiltration to unsaturated soil due to intensive rainfall was found to cause increase of ground water table as well as degree of saturation. Through this research slope stability analysis for unsaturated soil, considering the actual rainfall characteristic, might be a reasonable method of investigating characteristics of debris flow behavior, in particular, the moment of debris flow occurrence.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.29 no.12
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• pp.77-85
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• 2013

Unsaturated slopes experience infiltration during rainfall and become unstable when saturated. On the viewpoint of unsaturated effective stress, as matric suction decreases, both effective stress and shear strength decrease, which declines slope stability consequently. This study is focused on describing effective stress based on suction stress. The actual slope failures are simulated to calculate factors of safety in the field of finite element stress. In the residual soils of Hadong and Pohang, unsaturated properties are evaluated by laboratory tests. For unsaturated slopes, analyses of infiltration, stress and stability were performed to simulate actual failures. Based on unsaturated effective stress principle, the stability of actual slopes could be evaluated successfully. It is verified for the effective stress concept to be applicable to the engineering practice on slope design which considers infiltration by rainfall.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.601-607
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• 2002

Infiltration of rainfall causes railway embankment to be unstable and may result in failure. Basic relationship between the stability of railway embankment and rainfall introducing the partial saturation concept of ground are defined to analyze the stability of embankment by rainfall. A pressure plate test is also peformed to obtain soil-water characteristic curve of unsaturated soils. Based on this curve, the variables in the shear strength function and permeability function are also defined. These functions are used fur the numerical model for evaluation of railway embankments under rainfall. As comparing the model and case studies, the variation of shear strength, the degree of saturation and pore-water pressure for railway embankment during rainfall can be predicted and the safety factor of railway embankment can be expressed as the function of rainfall amount namely rainfall index. Therefore, the research on safety factor on railway embankment considering train speed and rainfall infiltration with the variation of rainfall intensity and rainfall duration was carried out in this paper.