• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2002.04a
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• pp.159-162
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• 2002

Innovative and nondestructive characterization techniques have been developed to locate and quantify nonaqueous phase liquids (NAPLs) in the vadose and saturated zones in the subsurface environment. One such technique is the partitioning interwell tracer test (PITT). The PITT is a simultaneous displacement of partitioning and non-partitioning tracers through a subsurface formation. Partitioning tracers will partition into the NAPL during their transport through NAPL-contaminated formations. Mean travel times of partitioning and non-partitioning tracers are used to estimate the quantity of NAPL encountered by the displaced tracer pulse. Travel times are directly proportional to the partitioning coefficient and the volume of NAPL contacted in the subsurface environment. This paper discusses the conceptual background, design and implementation of PITTs. (This document has not been subjected to Agency review and therefore does not necessarily reflect the views of the Agency, and no official endorsement should be inferred.)

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 1997.10a
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• pp.101-108
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• 1997

A pair of piezoelectric transducers was developed for geotechnical site characterization in rock materials. SH-wave measurement capability of the transducers can provide a more complete characterization. The performance of the transducers was tested at a limestone site.

• 한국지구물리탐사학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.299-304
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• 2003

Borehole radar is one kind of GPR, but it can be used in deep boreholes, and it has many advantages compared with low frequency borehole EM tools, and surface GPR. We have developed various techniques on borehole radar for environment study. The hardware development includes broadband radar system with the functions of polarimetry and inteferometry. By using these systems, we tested the measurements to applications such as subsurface fracture characterization, subsurface cavity detections. In this paper, we will describe the advantages of the advanced radar technology for environment studies, and show some experiment results.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.45-53
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• 2013

Many cases of strategically designed groundwater remediation have lack of information of hydraulic conductivity or permeability, which can render remediation methods inefficient. Many studies have been carried out to minimize this shortcoming by determining detailed hydraulic information either through direct or indirect measurements. One popular method for hydraulic characterization is the pilot point method (PPM), where the hydraulic property is estimated at a small number of strategically selected points using secondary measurements such as hydraulic head or tracer concentration. This paper adopted a D-optimality based pilot point method (DBM) developed previously for hydraulic head measurements and extended it to include both hydraulic head and tracer measurements. Based on different combinations of trials, our analysis showed that DBM performs well when hydraulic head is used for pilot point selection and both hydraulic head and tracer measurements are used for determining the conductivity values.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.42 no.8 s.279
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• pp.537-541
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• 2005

Silicon nitride is one of the most successful engineering ceramics, owing to a favorable combination of properties, including high strength, high hardness, low thermal expansion coefficient, and high fracture toughness. However, the impact damage behavior of $Si_3N_4$ ceramics has not been widely characterized. In this study, sphere and explosive indentations were used to characterize the static and dynamic damage behavior of $Si_3N_4$ ceramics with different microstructures. Three grades of $Si_3N_4$ with different grain size and shape, fine-equiaxed, medium, and coarse-elongated, were prepared. In order to observe the subsurface damaged zone, a bonded-interface technique was adopted. Subsurface damage evolution of the specimens was then characterized extensively using optical and electron microscopy. It was found that the damage response depends strongly on the microstructure of the ceramics, particularly on the glassy grain boundary phase. In the case of static indentation, examination of subsurface damage revealed competition between brittle and ductile damage modes. In contrast to static indentation results, dynamic indentation induces a massive subsurface yield zone that contains severe micro-failures. In this study, it is suggested that the weak glassy grain boundary phase plays an important role in the resistance to dynamic fracture.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.25 no.2_spc
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• pp.1-15
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• 2020

Monitoring and assessing terminal electron accepting processes (TEAPs) are one of the most important steps to remediate contaminated sites via various in-situ techniques. TEAPs are a part of the microbial respiration reactions. Microorganisms gain energy from these reactions and reduces pollutants. Monitoring TEAPs enables us to predict degradability of contaminants and degradation rates. In many countries, TEAPs have been used for characterization of field sites and management of groundwater wells. For instance, US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provided strategies for groundwater quality and well management by applying TEAPs monitoring. Denmark has also constructed TEAPs map of local unit area to develop effective groundwater managing system, particularly to predict and assess nitrogen contamination. In case of Korea, although detailed soil survey and groundwater contamination assessment have been employed, site investigation guidelines using TEAPs have not been established yet. To better define TEAPs in subsurface environments, multiple indicators including ion concentrations, isotope compositions and contaminant degradation byproducts must be assessed. Furthermore, dissolved hydrogen concentrations are regarded as significant evidence of TEAPs occurring in subsurface environment. This review study introduces optimal sampling techniques of groundwater and dissolved hydrogen, and further discuss how to assess TEAPs in contaminated subsurface environments according to several contamination scenarios.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.51-64
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• 2015

In the present study, we develop two history matching techniques based on Markov chain Monte Carlo method where radial basis function and Gaussian distribution generated by unconditional geostatistical simulation are employed as the random walk transition kernels. The Bayesian inverse methods for aquifer characterization as the developed models can be effectively applied to the condition even when the targeted information such as hydraulic conductivity is absent and there are transient hydraulic head records due to imposed stress at observation wells. The model which uses unconditional simulation as random walk transition kernel has advantage in that spatial statistics can be directly associated with the predictions. The model using radial basis function network shares the same advantages as the model with unconditional simulation, yet the radial basis function network based the model does not require external geostatistical techniques. Also, by employing radial basis function as transition kernel, multi-scale nested structures can be rigorously addressed. In the validations of the developed models, the overall predictabilities of both models are sound by showing high correlation coefficient between the reference and the predicted. In terms of the model performance, the model with radial basis function network has higher error reduction rate and computational efficiency than with unconditional geostatistical simulation.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.883-890
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• 2016

Marine sediments are a microbial biosphere with an unknown physiology, and the sediments harbor numerous distinct phylogenetic lineages of Bacteria and Archaea that are at present uncultured. In this study, the structure of the archaeal and bacterial communities was investigated in the surface and subsurface sediments of Jeju Island using a next-generation sequencing method. The microbial communities in the surface sediments were distinct from those in the subsurface sediments; the relative abundance of sequences for Thaumarchaeota, Actinobacteria, Bacteroides, Alphaproteobacteria, and Gammaproteobacteria were higher in the surface than subsurface sediments, whereas the sequences for Euryarchaeota, Acidobacteria, Firmicutes, and Deltaproteobacteria were relatively more abundant in the subsurface than surface sediments. This study presents detailed characterization of the spatial distribution of benthic microbial communities of Jeju Island and provides fundamental information on the potential interactions mediated by microorganisms with the different biogeochemical cycles in coastal sediments.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.27 no.spc
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• pp.34-50
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• 2022

Principal component analysis (PCA) was conducted using hydrochemical data in four testbeds (A to D) built for the development of site characterization technologies to assess the hydrochemical processes controlling the hydrochemistry in each site. The PCA results indicated the nitrogen loading to deep bedrock aquifers through permeable fractures in Testbed A, the chemical weathering enhanced with the biodegradation of petroleum hydrocarbons in Testbed B, the reductive dechlorination in Testbed C, and the different hydrochemistry depending on the depth to bedrock in Testbed D, consistent with the characteristics of each site. In Testbeds B and D, outliers seemed to affect the PCA result probably due to the small number of samples, whereas the PCA result was still consistent with site characteristics. This study result indicates that the PCA is widely applicable to hydrochemical data for the assessment of major hydrochemical processes in contamination sites, which is useful for site characterization when combined with other site characterization technologies, e.g., geological survey, geophysical investigation, borehole logging. It is suggested that PCA is applied in contaminated sites to interpret hydrochemical data not only for the distribution of contamination levels but also for the assessment of major hydrochemical processes and contamination sources.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.34-43
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• 2010

The fate of hydrophobic organic contaminants (HOCs) in ground water is highly affected by the distribution and property of the carbonaceous materials (CMs) in subsurface sediments. CMs in soils consist of organic matters (e.g., cellulose, fulvic acid, humic acid, humin, etc.) and black carbon such as char, soot, etc. The distribution and property of CMs are governed by source materials and geological evolution (e.g., diagenesis, catagenesis, etc.) of them. In this study, the distribution and property of CMs in subsurface sediments near the Imjin river in the Republic of Korea and HOC sorption property to the subsurface sediments were investigated. The organic carbon contents of sand and clay/silt layers were about 0.35% and 1.37%, respectively. The carbon contents of condensed form of CMs were about 0.13% and 0.45%, respectively. The existence of black carbon was observed using scanning electron microscopes with energy dispersive spectroscopy. The specific surface areas (SSA) of CMs in heavy fraction(HFrCM) measured with N2 were $35-46m^2/g$. However, SSAs of those HFrCM mineral fraction was only $1.6-4.3m^2/g$. The results of thermogravimetric analysis show that the mass loss of HFrCM was significant at $50-200^{\circ}C$ and $350-600^{\circ}C$ due to the degradation of soft form and condensed form of CMs, respectively. The trichloroethylene (TCE) sorption capacities of sand and clay/silt layers were similar to each other, and these values were also similar to oxidzed layer of glacially deposited subsurface sediments of the Chanute Air Force Base (AFB) in Rantoul, Illinois. However, these were 7-8 times lower than TCE sorption capacity of reduced layer of the Chanute AFB sediments. For accurate prediction of the fate of hydrophobic organic contaminants in subsurface sediments, continuous studies on the development of characterization methods for CMs are required.