• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2000.03b
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• pp.159-166
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• 2000

Non-destructive out-hole tests, impact-echo and impact-response are widely applied to evaluate integrity of drilled shafts. In these tests, vibratory motions of drilled shafts are interpreted, which induced by impacts on the shaft head. In applying the tests to evaluating integrity of shaft, it has been attended whether the tests have resolutions enough to distinguish existence of slime at between the shaft end and a bearing soil deposit. To distinguish existence of slime by tests, modes of shaft vibrations need to be reasonably interpreted, which generally vary according to a shaft boundary condition such as, a free-free or a free-fixed condition. The boundary condition of a shaft is, however, found to be significantly affected by stiffness of soil deposits around shaft as well as penetration depths of shaft into a bearing soil deposit. Thus, these effects on the boundary condition of a shaft should be considered reasonably in interpreting test results to decide the existence of slime. To investigate the effects, in this study, vibratory motions of shafts constructed in various soil conditions and end penetration depths are examined analytically. Based on the studies, variations of boundary condition are characterized in terms of soil stiffness contrast between a shaft perimeter and a shaft end, and also the ratio of a penetration depth to a shaft length. The results can be applied to verify the applicability of tests to identify the slime.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.17 no.12
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• pp.65-72
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• 2016

There are numerous factors that affect stress distribution in a buried pipe, such as the shape, size, and stiffness of the pipe, its burial depth, and the stiffness of the surrounding soil. In addition, the pipe can benefit from the soil arching effect to some extent, through which the overburden and surcharge pressure at the crown can be carried by the adjacent soil. As a result, the buried pipe needs to support only a portion of the load that is not transferred to the adjacent soil. This paper presents numerical efforts to investigate the stress distribution in the buried concrete pipe under various environmental conditions. To that end, a nonlinear elasto-plastic model for backfill materials was implemented into finite element software by a user-defined subroutine (user material, or UMAT) to more precisely analyze the soil behavior surrounding a buried concrete pipe subjected to surface loading. In addition, three different backfill materials with a native soil were selected to examine the material-specific stress distribution in pipe. The environmental conditions considering in this study the loading effect and void effects were investigated using finite element method. The simulation results provide information on how the pressures are redistributed, and how the buried concrete pipe behaves under various environmental conditions.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2005.03a
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• pp.25-32
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• 2005

Modeling techniques of piled pier were reviewed and the influences of pile cap's boundary conditions were analyzed in this study. Among various modeling techniques, equivalent cantilever method seems relatively simple for modeling pile groups and it has some problems to determine the virtual fixed points. Through the analyses, it was found that the method of nonlinear p-y model with soil springs was more appropriate than equivalent cantilever method. The method modeling a pile group using stiffness matrix seems useful for practical design, which can represent the nonlinear three-dimensional behavior of a piled pier. In this study, the stiffness matrix of a pile group could be estimated efficiently and precisely using three-dimensional nonlinear analysis programs of pile groups (FBPier 3.0, YSGroup).

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2001.03a
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• pp.397-404
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• 2001

Sand pile is one of the widely used ground improvement methods. Sand pile improved ground will have composite ground effects, even though the primary purpose is the accelerated consolidation. However, the consolidation of sand pile improved ground as a composite ground is substantially under developed. This study investigate the effect of composite ground for relatively low volume displacement sand piles. Plate bearing tests and earth pressure cell measurements are performed. It turned out that the contribution of sand pile as a load bearing mechanism is not substantial. However the bearing capacity of the surrounding clayey soil is increased by sixty percent, and it cause the stiffness change during consolidation. Therefore it is expected that, the effect of increased stiffness of sand pile improved ground is influenced by change of ground stiffness.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.315-324
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• 2018

With rapid economic growth, numerous deep excavation projects for high-rise buildings and subway transportation networks have been constructed in the past two decades. Deep excavations particularly in thick deposits of soft clay may cause excessive ground movements and thus result in potential damage to adjacent buildings and supporting utilities. Extensive plane strain finite element analyses considering small strain effect have been carried out to examine the wall deflections for excavations in soft clay deposits supported by diaphragm walls and bracings. The excavation geometrical parameters, soil strength and stiffness properties, soil unit weight, the strut stiffness and wall stiffness were varied to study the wall deflection behaviour. Based on these results, a multivariate adaptive regression splines model was developed for estimating the maximum wall deflection. Parametric analyses were also performed to investigate the influence of the various design variables on wall deflections.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.97-112
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• 2009

The interactions between a granular pile and raft placed on top are investigated using the continuum approach. The compatibility of vertical and radial displacements along the pile - soil interface and of the vertical displacements along the raft - top of ground interfaces are satisfied. Results show that consideration of radial displacement compatibility does not influence the settlement response of or sharing of the applied load between the granular pile and the raft. The percentage load carried by the granular pile (GP) increases with the increase of its stiffness and decreases with the increase of the relative size of raft. The normal stresses at the raft - soil interface decrease with the increase of stiffness of GP and/or relative length of GP. The influences of GP stiffness and relative length of GP are found to be more for relatively large size of raft. The percentage of load transferred to the base of GP increases with the increase of relative size of raft.

• Geotechnical Engineering
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.53-62
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• 1997

Analytical studies were conducted to develop the Spectral-Analysis-of-Surface-Waves (SASW) method for underwater use. For the precise estimation of the in-situ soil stiffness profile from SASW measurements, it is essential to determine economical and reasonable theoretical dispersion curves reflecting various experimental conditions. In this paper, therefore, analytical methods are mainly discussed, which were developed to determine theoretical dispersion curves of surface waves propagated along the soil-water interface. Application of the analytical methods is then illustrated by an example involving estimation of a stiffness profile through a forward modeling process of SASW measurements. Applicabilities of the SASW method as well as the developed analytical methods are evaluated, respectively, from the example.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2001.06a
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• pp.1-11
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• 2001

This Paper presents the result of a parametric study on the behavior of stiffened grid reinforced segmental wall resting on non-yielding foundation. The parametric study was conducted using the nonlinear finite element analysis. In the finite element analysis, the step by step construction of the wall such as backfill, block reinforcement, block/backfill and soil/reinforcement interfaces were carefully modeled. The mechanical behavior of stiffened grid reinforced segmental walls was then investigated based on the result of analysis with emphasis on the effect of reinforcement stiffness on the behavior of the wall. The results of analysis indicate that the horizontal wall displacement decrease; with increasing the reinforcement stiffness at a decreasing rate, and that the horizontal stress at the back of the reinforced soil block does not much vary with the reinforcement stiffness. It is also revealed that the calculated maximum vertical stress at the base of the reinforced soil block agrees well with that based on the Meyerhof distribution and that the reinforcement and the connection force are considerably smaller than what might be expected based on the current design assumptions. The implications of the findings from this study to current design approaches were discussed in detail.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.57-65
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• 2021

The effects of initial soil fabric and aspect ratio (AR) on the small-strain stiffness (G0) of granular soils are studied by employing discrete element method (DEM) numerical analysis. Elongated clumps composed of subspheres were adopted, and the G0 values were obtained by DEM simulations of drained triaxial tests under different densities and initial confining pressure (p0). The DEM simulations indicate that the initial soil fabric has an insignificant effect on G0. The effect of the AR on G0 is related to the initial density. Namely, for dense specimens, G0 first increases with increasing AR, reaching a plateau value when the AR ≥ 1.5. However, for loose specimens, G0 gradually increases as the AR increases. Microscopic examination reveals that G0 uniquely depends on the coordination number of the particles (CN-particle) rather than the subspheres (CN-sphere) at the particulate level for the effects of initial soil fabric and AR. Finally, Poisson's ratio ν0 is also determined by CN-particle. In addition, based on data in literature and this study, ν0 can be fitted as ν0 = 5.920(G0/(p0)1/3)-0.99, which can be used to predict ν0 of granular soils based on the measured G0.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.277-293
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• 2024

Shored Mechanically Stabilized Earth (SMSE) walls are types of soil retaining structures that increase soil stability under static and dynamic loads. The damage caused by an earthquake can be determined by evaluating the probabilistic seismic response of SMSE walls. This study aimed to assess the seismic performance of SMSE walls and provide fragility curves for evaluating failure levels. The generated fragility curves can help to improve the seismic performance of these walls through assessing and controlling variables like backfill surface settlement, lateral deformation of facing, and permanent relocation of the wall. A parametric study was performed based on a non-linear elastoplastic constitutive model known as the hardening soil model with small-strain stiffness, HSsmall. The analyses were conducted using PLAXIS 2D, a Finite Element Method (FEM) program, under plane-strain conditions to study the effect of the number of geogrid layers and the axial stiffness of geogrids on the performance of SMSE walls. In this study, three areas of damage (minor, moderate, and severe) were observed and, in all cases, the wall has not completely entered the stage of destruction. For the base model (Model A), at the highest ground acceleration coefficient (1 g), in the moderate damage state, the fragility probability was 76%. These values were 62%, and 54%, respectively, by increasing the number of geogrids (Model B) and increasing the geogrid stiffness (Model C). Meanwhile, the fragility values were 99%, 98%, and 97%, respectively in the case of minor damage. Notably, the probability of complete destruction was zero percent in all models.