• Geomechanics and Engineering
• /
• v.6 no.2
• /
• pp.99-115
• /
• 2014

Uncertainties in design variables and design equations have a significant impact on the safety of geotechnical structures like retaining walls and slopes. This paper presents a possible framework for obtaining the partial safety factors based on reliability approach for different random variables affecting the stability of a reinforced concrete cantilever retaining wall and a slope under static loading conditions. Reliability analysis is carried out by Mean First Order Second Moment Method, Point Estimate Method, Monte Carlo Simulation and Response Surface Methodology. A target reliability index ${\beta}$ = 3 is set and partial safety factors for each random variable are calculated based on different coefficient of variations of the random variables. The study shows that although deterministic analysis reveals a safety factor greater than 1.5 which is considered to be safe in conventional approach, reliability analysis indicates quite high failure probability due to variation of soil properties. The results also reveal that a higher factor of safety is required for internal friction angle ${\varphi}$, while almost negligible values of safety factors are required for soil unit weight ${\gamma}$ in case of cantilever retaining wall and soil unit weight ${\gamma}$ and cohesion c in case of slope. Importance of partial safety factors is shown by analyzing two simple geotechnical structures. However, it can be applied for any complex system to achieve economization.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
• /
• v.24 no.2
• /
• pp.167-178
• /
• 2021

Spatial variability is an inherent uncertainty of soil properties. Current reliability analyses generally incorporate random field theory and Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) when dealing with spatial variability, in which the computational efficiency is a significant challenge. This paper proposes a KL-FORM algorithm to improve the computational efficiency. In the proposed KL-FORM, Karhunen-Loeve (KL) expansion is used for discretizing random fields, and first-order reliability method (FORM) is employed for reliability analysis. The KL expansion and FORM can be used in conjunction, through adopting independent standard normal variables in the discretization of KL expansion as the basic variables in the FORM. To illustrate the effectiveness of this KL-FORM, it is applied to a case study of a strip footing in spatially variable unsaturated soil under rainfall, in which the bearing capacity of the footing is computed by numerical simulation. This case study shows that the KL-FORM is accurate and efficient. The parametric analyses suggest that ignoring the spatial variability of the soil may lead to an underestimation of the reliability index of the footing.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
• /
• v.25 no.1
• /
• pp.37-52
• /
• 2020

Sensitivity analysis of hydrodynamic and reaction parameters in conceptual model reflecting aquifer characteristics of Korea was performed to evaluate the uncertainty in the predicted concentrations. Among the hydrodynamic input parameters, both hydraulic conductivity (K_x) and hydraulic gradient (I) affected transport behaviors of contaminants, and resulted in same convergence concentrations with continuous injections of contaminant. However, longitudinal dispervisity (α_L) affected both transport behaviors and the convergence concentrations of contaminants. Compared to the hydrodynamic parameters, growth kinetic and degradation parameters (μ_m & K_c) more significantly affected both transport behaviors and the convergence concentrations of contaminants, indicating those parameters had higher sensitivity indices causing the uncertainties of model predictions. Considering that the sensitivity indices of both hydrodynamic and reaction parameters were a function of transport distance of groundwater, the parameters with higher sensitivity indices, a priori, need to be investigated using conceptual model reflecting site-specific aquifer characteristics before field investigation. After determining the parameters with higher sensitivity indices, the detail field investigations for the selected hydrodynamic and reaction parameters were warranted to reduce the uncertainties of model predictions.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
• /
• v.36 no.5
• /
• pp.353-363
• /
• 2020

Hydrologic models can be classified into two types: those for understanding physical processes and those for predicting hydrologic quantities. This study deals with how to use the model to predict today's stream flow based on the system's knowledge of yesterday's state and the model parameters. In this regard, for the model to generate accurate predictions, the uncertainty of the parameters and appropriate estimates of the state variables are required. In this study, a relatively simple hydrologic partitioning model is proposed that can explicitly implement the hydrologic partitioning process, and the posterior distribution of the parameters of the proposed model is estimated using the Markov chain Monte Carlo approach. Further, the application method of the ensemble Kalman filter is proposed for updating the normalized soil moisture, which is the state variable of the model, by linking the information on the posterior distribution of the parameters and by assimilating the observed steam flow data. The stochastically and recursively estimated stream flows using the data assimilation technique revealed better representation of the observed data than the stream flows predicted using the deterministic model. Therefore, the ensemble Kalman filter in conjunction with the Markov chain Monte Carlo approach could be a reliable and effective method for forecasting daily stream flow, and it could also be a suitable method for routinely updating and monitoring the watershed-averaged soil moisture.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
• /
• v.51 no.4
• /
• pp.57-66
• /
• 2009

수학적 모델은 수량과 수질의 예측을 위해 현장 조사의 대안으로 사용되어지며 이러한 모델의 사용과 실측에 불확실성이 존재하게 된다. 불확실성에 대한 많은 연구들이 진행되어 왔으나 시나리오에 의한 모델링 과정에서 발생하는 불확실성에 대한 연구는 미흡한 실정이다. 본 연구에서는 산림이 농경지와 목초지로의 변화에 따른 시나리오를 설계한 후 시나리오 적용에 따른 SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) 매개변수의 불확실성을 분석하고자 하였다. 몬테카를로 기법 (Monte Carlo simulation)을 이용하여 각 매개변수별 1,000개의 난수를 발생하였으며 앙상블 유량모의 기법을 이용하여 미국 Alabama주 카하바강 상류 (50,967ha)를 대상으로 각 난수별 100개의 유량을 통해 불확실성을 분석하였다. 분석 결과 산림지역이 농경지와 목초지로 변화 되었을 때 유출량이 증가하는 것으로 분석되었으며, 임야가 목초지 보다 농경지로 변화되었을 때 유출량은 더욱 증가하는 것으로 나타났다. 각 시나리오별 SWAT 매개변수의 불확실성은 AWC (Available water capacity), CN (Curve number), GWREVAP (groundwater re-evaporation coeffeicient), REVAPMN (minimum depth of water in shallow aquifer for re-evaporation to occur)순으로 크게 나타났으며, Ksat (Saturated hydraulic conductivity)와 ESCO(Soil evaporation compensation factor)는 유출량의 변화에 큰 영향을 미치지 못하는 것으로 분석되었다. 토지피복별 산림 면적이 클 경우 불확실성이 크게 나타나 산림이 목초지와 농경지로 변함에 따라 불확실성은 감소하는 것으로 나타났다.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
• /
• v.32 no.11
• /
• pp.31-42
• /
• 2016

Usually the seismic stability analysis of slope uses the pseudostatic analysis considering the inertial force by the earthquake as a static load. Geostructures such as slope include the uncertainty of soil properties. Therefore, it is necessary to consider probabilistic method for stability analysis. In this study, the probabilistic stability analysis of slope considering the uncertainty of soil properties has been performed. The fragility curve that represents the probability of exceeding limit state of slope as a function of the ground motion has been established. The Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) has been implemented to perform the probabilistic stability analysis of slope with pseudostatic analysis. A procedure to develop the fragility curve by the pseudostatic horizontal acceleration has been presented by calculating the probability of failure based on the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) based response surface technique that reduces the required time of MCS. The results showed that the proposed method can get the fragility curve that is similar to the direct MCS-based fragility curve, and can be efficiently used to reduce the analysis time.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
• /
• v.13 no.11
• /
• pp.81-91
• /
• 2012

This paper mainly deals with the analysis of probabilistic characteristics of the disturbed function proposed to predict dynamic behavior of Geosynthetic-soil interface as the lining and cover systems used in waste landfills. Calibration and statistical property estimation of the parameters in the disturbed function model were first performed using many experimental data obtained from a new multi-purpose interface apparatus (M-PIA). In order to analyze the effect due to changes in chemical degradation and normal loads condition, probabilistic properties such as mean, coefficient of variation and distribution type of the disturbed function were evaluated using both the LHS method known to be a very efficient sampling scheme and the estimated statistical property of A and Z. As a result, variation of the disturbed function is found to range approximately from 10~28% according to the level of ${\xi}_D$ and Weibull appears to be the most adequate distribution type at almost all levels of ${\xi}_D$. It is concluded that a probabilistic safety assessment method for Geosynthetic-soil interface considering uncertainty in shear strength can be developed by utilizing probabilistic properties of the disturbed function obtained in this study.

• Ecology and Resilient Infrastructure
• /
• v.7 no.1
• /
• pp.26-42
• /
• 2020

Soils are the basis for plant rooting and ecosystem creation, the site of life for humankind, and require much time for their creation, so there will be no disagreement about the importance and necessity of soil conservation and management. Soil resilience is the ability of soils to maintain their original structure and function (resistance and recovery) from various kinds of disturbances, and is an indispensable field of study that prepares for a future with high uncertainty and unpredictability. Therefore, this study summarizes the concept and necessity of soil resilience, which is not yet widely known in Korea, and the contents of previous studies were reviewed. This study was carried out with the aim of contributing to lowering the threshold for entry into resilience research for domestic and foreign researchers who are new to soil resilience. In the first part of this study, we introduced resilience and soil resilience, and in the second part, we summarized the main causes of stress or disturbance that have been studied by many soil resilience researches. This makes it easy to find the references authors need. It is virtually impossible to find the same soil environment because there is no same area on the earth with all the same rock, climate, human activity, and culture, suggesting that each soil has its own uniqueness. Therefore, the researcher who wants to utilize the results of this study should take into consideration the specificity of the soil and the region to which the soil resilience is introduced, and modify it if necessary. In addition, efforts should be made to strengthen the network of soil resilience researchers to create a basis for sharing and actively utilizing the research results.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference
• /
• 1996.06c
• /
• pp.977-986
• /
• 1996

The uncertainty of rains at the onset of wet season (WS) and the drought risk involved hinder growing more than one rainfed lwoland rice crop per year. Establishing transplanted rice well into the WS leaves insufficient moisture in the soil for subsequent crop. Rice establishment early in the season gives the farmer better opportunities to grow a crop after rice. An experiment was conducted startign in 1993 to evaluate dry seeding of rice through slit soil seeding. It is done utilizing the vertical metering slit seeder for conserving soil moisture coming from the first rains in the early WS to sustain germination and establishment of the seeding at least until the succeeding rains under therainfed lowland (RL) environment. The treatment consisted of slit-seeding the PSBRc 14 into the tilled and nontilled plots at 100kg/ha and at depths of <10 mm (shallow seeding) and 60-70m (deep seeding). The control treatment was broadcast seeded on tilled soil and harrow to cover the seeds The superior crop establishment observed in 1995 WS experiment on nontilled, slit-seeded plots confirmed the results observed in 1993 WS and 1994 WS experiments. Emergence in deep seeding was not significantly different from shallow seeding in nontilled plots giving an average yield of 2.1 t/ha in all slit-seeded plots. This offers an advantage of reduced energy in put in nontilled shallow seeding. However, heavy weed infestation has to be addressed at the early stage of rice in nontilled soil to get the full advantage from slit seeding. The consistently better crop establishment observed in slit seeding over that of broadcast seeding in the WS of 1993, 1994 and 1995 also demonstrates that the slit seeding technology can be adopted with confidence in the rainfed lowland field condition to reduce the risks involved in broadcast seeding.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
• /
• 2002.06a
• /
• pp.77-89
• /
• 2002

To analyze a bearing capacity for pile groups, a number of model tests have been done and theoretical methods studied. In the case of design of group pile bearing capacity is calculated with only pile capacity. But uncertainty of bearing capacity and behavior of foundation cap(raft) leads to conservative design ignoring bearing effects of foundation cap. In the case of considering bearing capacity of foundation cap, the simple sum of bearing capacity of foundation cap and pile groups cannot be the bearing capacity of total foundation system. Since cap-pile-soil interaction affects the behavior of pile groups. Thus, understanding cap-pile-soil interaction is very important in optimal design. In this paper, the piled raft behavior is studied through model tests of 2$\times$2, 2$\times$3, 3$\times$3 pile group. Changes of behavior of pile group foundation by touching effects of foundation cap with soil are studied. Also changes of spacing between piles. Foundation cap is made of rigid steel plate and piles are made steel pipes. From this model tests, the changes of behavior changes of pile groups by touching effects of foundation cap with soil are studied.