• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• 제25권1호
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• pp.97-106
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• 2015

We must precisely investigate the mechanical characters of rock to design rock slope safely and efficiently. But the method of clinometer has some disadvantages. So, we need a new measurement that can replace the method of clinometer. In this study, we analyze the reliability of joint orientation measurements in rock slope using the 3D laser scanner and program Split-FX that is a point cloud data analysis software. We could acquire the 495 pieces joint data through the automatic extraction of features. And we confirmed that there were some errors occurred with ${\pm}4^{\circ}$ of dip and ${\pm}5^{\circ}$ of dip direction. Generally, the method of clinometer has ${\pm}5^{\circ}$ and ${\pm}10^{\circ}$ error ranges of the joint orientation(dip/dip direction) that are the results of the advance research. Therefore, we analyzed the method of 3D laser scanner, and it is found to be efficient, reliable. This method is expected to mend the disadvantages of Clinometer method.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• 제25권1호
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• pp.56-67
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• 2015

In this study, a source locating technique applicable to transversely isotropic media was developed. Wave velocity anisotropy was considered based on the partition approximation method, which simply enabled AE source locating. Sets of P wave arrival time were decided by the two-step AIC algorithm and they were later used to locate the AE sources when having the least error compared with the partitioned elements. In order to validate the technique, pencil lead break test on artificial transversely isotropic mortar specimen was carried out. Defining the absolute error as the distance between the pencil lead break point and the located point, 1.60 mm ~ 14.46 mm of range and 8.57 mm of average were estimated therefore it was regarded as thought to be 'acceptable' considering the size of the specimen and the AE sensors. Comparing each absolute error under different threshold levels, results showed small discrepancies therefore this technique was hardly affected by background noise. Absolute error could be decomposed into each coordinate axis error and through it, effect of AE sensor position could be understood so if optimum sensor position was able to be decided, one could get more precise outcome.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• 제17권5호
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• pp.350-359
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• 2007

Most large cut slopes of open pit mines, roadways, and railways are steeply inclined and composed with rocks that do not contain soils. However, these rock slopes suffer both weathering and fragmentation. In the case of steep slopes, falling rock and collapse of a slope may often occur due to surface erosion. Cast-in place concrete and rubble work are the most widely used earth structure-based pressure supports that act as restraints against the collapse of the rock slope. In order to overcome the shortcomings of conventional retaining walls, a segmental grid retaining wall is being used with connects precasted segments to construct the wall. In this study, laboratory model test was conducted to estimate deformation behavior of segmental grid retaining wall with configuration of rear strecher, height and inclination of the wall. In order to examine the behavior characteristics of a segmental grid retaining wall, this research analyzes the aspects of spacial displacement through relative displacement according to change in the inclination of the wall. Also, the walls behavior according to the formation and status of the rear stretcher which serves the role of transferring the load from the header and the stretcher which make up the wall, the displacement of backfill materials in the wall, and the location of the maximum load were surveyed and the characteristics of displacement in the segmental grid retaining wall were observed. The test results of the segmental grid retaining wall showed that there was a sudden increase in failure load according to the decrease in the wall's height and the size of the in was greatly decreased. Furthermore, it revealed that with identical inclination and height, the structure of the rear stitcher did not greatly affect the starting point or size of maximum horizontal displacement, but rather had a stronger effect on the inclination of the wall.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• 제22권5호
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• pp.346-353
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• 2012

Multi-specimen uniaxial compression test has been carried out in order to find the method to determine the five independent elastic constants from a single standard specimen of a transversely isotropic rock. Total 35 specimens of 7 different angles from a large block of rhyolite presenting the flow structure obviously are used in tests. This second report is to focus on the statistical evaluation of measured strains and analyzed elastic constants. And the determination of their true or near-true values is discussed. As the result of RSD analysis, it turns out that the reliability of measured strains is sufficiently obtained and Saint-Venant approximation is well applicable except 15 degree angled specimen in tests. RSD is decreasing on the increase of the angle of anisotropy. This tendency may be caused not only by the decreasing of the deviation of measured strains, but also by the better applicability of Saint-Venant approximation on the increase of angle. It can be concluded that the analyzed values are considered the near-true ones of five independent constants on the high reliability. But the variation of the apparent Young's modulus expected by these values is not proved to match the measured tendency. It is inferred that the factor to decrease the apparent Young's modulus and/or to increase the shear strain, is present in the test or in the nature of the anisotropy in consideration of this inconsistency.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• 제22권5호
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• pp.321-329
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• 2012

Laboratory tests for measuring absorption, porosity, P-wave velocity and uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) were performed to examine weathering characteristics of ilmenite by microorganism. Physical property changes were quantitatively estimated with comparing culture period on the condition of abiotic oxidation without microorganism and biooxidation with microorganism. As a result, the measured pH during 45 days was distributed in the range from 3.82 to 4.26, on the other hand, biooxidation showed the range from 2.20 to 2.57. The measured absorption according to microorganism and culture period represented 0.052% at final stage in the case of abiotic oxidation and 0.073% in the case of biooxidation. Porosity showed 0.206% at final stage in the case of abiotic oxidation and 0.281% in the case of biooxidation. In general, the values by biooxidation showed higher than that by abiotic oxidation. Change range of P-wave velocity with culture period showed that the measured value as 1410 m/s at final stage in the case of biooxidation was lower than 1886 m/s of that in the case of abiotic oxidation. The UCS was decreased with increasing culture period in all specimens and represented 241.1 MPa at final stage in the case of abiotic oxidation and 140.0 MPa in the case of bioxidation. In conclusion, it implies that influence of physical property on ilmenite by biooxidation related with microorganism was larger than that by abiotic oxidation.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• 제23권5호
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• pp.442-453
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• 2013

A large-scale high-temperature thermal energy storage(TES) was numerically modeled and the heat loss through storage tank walls was analyzed using a commercial code, FLAC3D. The operations of rock cavern type and above-ground type thermal energy storages with identical operating condition were simulated for a period of five consecutive years, in which it was assumed that the dominant heat transfer mechanism would be conduction in massive rock for the former and convection in the atmosphere for the latter. The variation of storage temperature resulting from periodic charging and discharging of thermal energy was considered in each simulation, and the effect of insulation thickness on the characteristics of heat loss was also examined. A comparison of the simulation results of different storage models presented that the heat loss rate of above-ground type TES was maintained constant over the operation period, while that of rock cavern type TES decreased rapidly in the early operation stage and tended to converge towards a certain value. The decrease in heat loss rate of rock cavern type TES can be attributed to the reduction in heat flux through storage tank walls followed by increase in surrounding rock mass temperature. The amount of cumulative heat loss from rock cavern type TES over a period of five-year operation was 72.7% of that from above-ground type TES. The heat loss rate of rock cavern type obtained in long-period operation showed less sensitive variations to insulation thickness than that of above-ground type TES.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• 제23권5호
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• pp.413-427
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• 2013

Thin Spray-on Liners(TSLs) based on polymer materials have been considered as an alternative to shotcrete and wire mesh in relatively fair rock conditions, and used in mines since 1990s. Nevertheless, Few experimental studies on their mechanical properties necessary for the evaluation of their bearing capacities as a support member have been carried out. In this study, tensile and bond strengths of two kinds of TSLs with different material compositions were measured at the age of 7 days. In addition, two kinds of bending tests proposed by EFNARC (2008) to simulate representative failure mechanisms of TSLs were carried out on the same materials and curing age as in tension and pull-out tests. From the tests, tensile strength of a TSL is shown to increase as its content of polymer is higher. In contrast, its bond strength seems to be in inverse proportion to its polymer content. Especially, the TSL material in which a cementitious component is included with relatively smaller polymer content shows a faster hardening characteristic which results in higher resistance to de-bonding between a TSL and a substrate. As a result, it is shown that the performance of TSLs might be dependent upon its corresponding polymer content.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• 제23권5호
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• pp.383-391
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• 2013

A number of true triaxial tests on rock samples have been conducted since the late 1960 and their results strongly suggest that the intermediate principal stress has a considerable effect on rock strength. Based on these experimental evidence, various 3-D rock failure criteria accounting for the effect of the intermediate principal stress have been proposed. Most of the 3-D failure criteria, however, are focused on the phenomenological description of the rock strength from the true triaxial tests, so that the associated strength parameters have little physical meaning. In order to confirm the likelihood that the intermediate principal stress dependency of rock strength is related to the presence of weak planes and their distribution to the preferred orientation, true triaxial tests are simulated with the transversely isotropic rock model. The conventional Mohr-Coulomb criterion is extended to its anisotropic version by incorporating the concept of microstructure tensor. With the anisotropic Mohr-Coulomb criterion, the critical plane approach is applied to calculate the strength of the transversely isotropic rock model and the orientation of the fracture plane. This investigation hints that the spatial distribution of microstructural planes with respect to the principal stress triad is closely related to the intermediate principal stress dependency of rock strength.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• 제23권5호
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• pp.353-361
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• 2013

Previous studies for analyzing optimal haulage routes of dump trucks in open pit mines mostly used raster data. However, the raster data has several problems in performing optimal route analyses: (1) the jagged appearance of haulage roads according the cell resolution often causes overestimation of the travel cost; (2) it difficult to trace the topological relationships among haulage roads. These problems can be eliminated by using vector network data, however a new method is required to reflect the performance characteristics of a dump truck according to terrain gradient changes. This study presents a new method to create vector network data with the consideration of terrain gradient for analyzing optimal haulage routes of dump trucks in open pit mines. It consists of four procedures: (a) creating digital elevation models, (b) digitizing haulage road networks, (c) calculating the terrain gradient of haulage roads, and (d) calculating the average speed and travel time of a dump truck along haulage roads. A simple case study at the Roto South pit in the Pasir open pit coal mine, Indonesia is also presented to provide proof that the proposed method is easily compatible to ArcGIS Network Analyst software and is effective in finding optimal haulage routes of dump trucks with considering terrain gradient in open pit mines.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• 제27권1호
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• pp.39-49
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• 2017

The factor of safety (FOS) is commonly used as an index to quantitatively state the degree of safety of various rock structures. Therefore it is important to understand the definition and characteristics of the adopted FOS because the calculated FOS may be different according to the definition of FOS even if it is estimated under the same stress condition. In this study, four local factors of safety based on maximum shear stress, maximum shear strength, stress invariants, and maximum principal stress were defined using the Mohr-Coulomb and Hoek-Brown failure criteria. Then, the variation characteristics of each FOS along five stress paths were investigated. It is shown that the local FOS based on the shear strength, which is widely used in the stability analysis of rock structures, results in a higher FOS value than those based on the maximum principal stress and the stress invariants. This result implies that the local FOS based on the maximum shear stress or the stress invariants is more necessary than the local FOS based on the shear strength when the conservative rock mechanics design is required. In addition, it is shown that the maximum principal stresses at failure may reveal a large difference depending on the stress path.