• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.29-38
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• 2020

Recent research trend of North Korean mining and rock engineering in the past 10 years was analyzed by a literature review of mining and rock engineering papers published in North Korean major mining journals, 'mining engineering', 'geological and geographical science' and 'technology innovation' published in 2008-2017. Basic database was established by organizing bibliographic information and abstract data of research papers in each journal. For each journal, paper submission trend classified by research field was analyzed using the basic database. And further study was conducted to the papers which showed distinguishing methodology and result, to analyze the trend of North Korean mining and rock engineering. The literature study showed a recent trend of quantification and automation in mining and rock engineering researches in North Korea, which seems due to recent changes in North Korea's science and technology policy and deterioration of the mining conditions. The results of this study can be applied in the feasibility studies of North Korea's mineral resource development projects. Future inter-Korean technical cooperation and site survey on North Korean field can secure complement the reliability of this study.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.15 no.2 s.55
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• pp.157-167
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• 2005

Current initial rock stress state is one of the key factors required to evaluate the stability and failure around an excavated opening and its importance increases as the construction depth become deeper and the scale of the rock structure become larger. In this paper, the study was performed to evaluate the characteristics of the regional stress state at Chuncheon-Yanggu mountainous region, the East-North part of Kyeonggi Massif. Forty nine field stress measurements in 9 boreholes were conducted at the depth from 20 m to 290 m by hydraulic fracturing method. The fracturing tracing works were carried out by acoustic televiewer scanning. The study results revealed that the different intial rock stress states presented at different formation rock type and the excessive horizontal stress state with stress ratio(K) close to 3.0 was measured at the depth of 200 m and deeper in the intrusive unite body of the study area. The results from the investigation of excessive horizontal stress and its effect on failure mode showed that there exist several points where the localized excessive horizontal stresses are big enough to potentially induce brittle failures around the future openings greater than 100 m in depth within the granite body of the study area.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.15 no.3 s.56
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• pp.223-227
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• 2005

The physical and mechanical properties of volcanic glass, which is distributed in the Samho area, South Korea were studied. Laboratory rock tests were carried out in order to obtain the various properties of rocks. Specific gravity, water content, absorption, porosity and wave velocity were measured for the physical properties. Uniaxial and triaxial compressive tests, Brazilian test and point load test were also performed for the mechanical properties. The tests of volcanic glass revealed that the apparent specific gravity, water content and absorption were 2.28, $1.67\%$ and $1.72\%$, respectively. Porosity $(3.87\%)$ was lower, whereas P-wave velocity (5330m/s) and S-wave velocity (2980 m/s) were relatively higher. Brazilian tensile strength ot 7.2MPa, and point load strength of 2.6MPa were among the mechanical properties of the rock. Uniaxial compressive strength (62.4MPa) estimated ken point load strength was very closed to the value (66.0MPa) from the uniaxial compressive test. Young's modulus and Poisson's ratio were E=43.2 GPa and v=0.28, respectively. Drawing the tangent line to Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion showed the cohesion of 20.1MPa and internal fraction angle of $28.6^{\circ}$.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.16 no.3 s.62
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• pp.251-258
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• 2006

In this paper, the applicability to the Korean rock condition of using the deformation moduli based on Rock Mass Rating (RMR) and Pressuremeter Test (PMT) is evaluated. The correlations among deformation moduli and various rock properties were also analyzed. It appears that the existing correlations using RMR overestimate the deformation moduli and wide variation was found between predicted moduli using these correlations and measured values. As for the correlations among the deformation moduli and various rock properties, Rock Quality Designation (RQD) and unconfined compressive strength (UCS) were found to correlate to deformation moduli reasonably well, but joint spacing and joint conditions appear to correlate poorly to RQD and UCS. Additionally, groundwater can not be correlated with the modulus values. While the depth has very little contribution to deformation modulus, it should be factored in the simple regression analyses with various rock mass properties, especially with the correlations made with UCS, RQD etc. With the deficiencies of these correlations, more in depth analysis techniques such as multivariate correlations may be to reliably estimate deformation modulus of rock mass.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.16 no.3 s.62
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• pp.259-276
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• 2006

In rock mass subject to high in-situ stresses, the failure process of rock is dominated by the stress-induced fractures growing parallel to the excavation boundary. When the ratio of in situ stresses compared to rock strength is greater than a certain value, progressive brittle failure which is characterized by popping and spatting of rock debris occurs due to stress concentration. Traditional constitutive model like Mohr-Coulomb usually assume that the normal stress dependent frictional strength component and the cohesion strength component are constant, therefore modelling progressive brittle failure will be very difficult. In this study, a series of numerical analyses were conducted for surrounding rock mass near crude oil storage cavern using CW-FS model which was known to be efficient for modelling brittle failure and the results were compared with those of linear Mohr-Coulomb model. Further analyses were performed by varying plastic shear strain limits on cohesion and internal friction angle to find the proper values which yield the matching result with the observed failure in the oil storage caverns. The obtained results showed that CW-FS model could be a proper method to characterize essential behavior of progressive brittle failure in competent rock mass.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.17 no.2 s.67
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• pp.109-118
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• 2007

The excavation damaged zone (EDZ) is an area around an excavation where in situ rock mass properties, stress condition. displacement. groundwater flow conditions have been altered due to the excavation. Various studies have been carried out on EDZ, but most studies have been focused on the mechanical bahavior of EDZ by in situ experiment. Even though the EDZ could potentially form a high permeable pathway of groundwater flow, only a few studies were performed on the analysis of groundwater flow in EDZ. In this study, the' hydraulic EDZ' was defined as the rock Lone adjacent to the excavation where the hydraulic aperture has been changed due to the excavation. And hydraulic EDZ (hydraulic aperture changed zone) estimated by two-dimensional DEM program was considered in three-dimensional DFN model. From this approach the groundwater flow characteristics corresponding to hydraulic aperture change were examined. Together. a parametric study was performed to examine the boundary conditions that frequently used in DFN analysis such as constant head or constant flux condition. According to the numerical analysis, hydraulic aperture change induced by the hydraulic-mechanical interaction becomes one of the most important factors Influencing the hydraulic behavior of jointed rock masses. And also from this study, we suggest the proper boundary condition in three-dimensional DFN model.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.235-252
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• 2016

This study presents a methodology to reproduce the mechanical behavior of isotropic or transversely isotropic rock using the polygonal grain-based distinct element model. A numerical technique to monitor the evolution of micro-cracks during the simulation was developed in the present study, which enabled us to examine the contribution of tensile cracking and shear cracking to the progressive process of the failure. The numerical results demonstrated good agreement with general observations from rock specimens in terms of the behavior and the evolution of micro-cracks, suggesting the capability of the model to represent the mechanical behavior of rock. We also carried out a parametric study as a fundamental work to examine the relationships between the microscopic properties of the constituents and the macroscopic behavior of the model. Depending on the micro-properties, the model exhibited a variety of responses to the external load in terms of the strength and deformation characteristics. In addition, a numerical technique to reproduce the transversely isotropic rock was suggested and applied to Asan gneiss from Korea. The behavior of the numerical model was in good agreement with the results obtained in the laboratory-scale experiments of the rock.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.276-283
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• 2012

Changes in rock properties due to freezing and thawing cycles ranging from $-20^{\circ}C$ to $10^{\circ}C$ were checked for the typical Korean rocks: granite (weathered), limestone, sandstone, tuff, shale and basalt. The porosity, seismic velocity, shore hardness and specific gravity were measured every 10 cycles for each type of rock up to 40 cycles. The specific gravity was rarely changed. Granite (w), shale and basalt decreased gradually in their shore hardness and seismic velocity values, these values for limestone, sandstone and tuff changed only a very little. The porosity increased in the granite (w), shale and basalt, whereas in the others it did not change. Due to the low tensile strength with high porosity, granite (w), shale and basalt were susceptible to the F-T cycles. A linear regression equation was calculated based on the experiment results according to properties and types of rock. The relationship between the freeze-thaw sensitivity (=initial porosity/initial tensile strength) and the coefficients of the regression equation was examined. With additional experimental data, the coefficients of the regression equation can be estimated using the F-T sensitivity. This makes it possible to predict the properties of rock as affected by freeze-thaw weathering by only measuring the initial properties without knowledge of the regression equation coefficients for each type of rock.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.11-19
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• 2011

Geothermal energy is believed to be an important source among the renewable energy sources to provide the base load electricity. Although there has been a drastic increase in the use of geothermal heat pump in Korea, there is no geothermal power plant in operation in Korea. Fortunately, the first EGS (Enhanced Geothermal System) Project in Korea has started in Dec 2010. This five year project is divided into two stages; two years for exploration and drilling of 3 km depth to confirm the minimum target temperature of 100 degrees, and another three years composed drilling 5 km doublet, hydraulic stimulation of geothermal reservoir with expected temperature of 180 degrees (40 kg/s) and construction of MW geothermal power plant in the surface. This EGS project would be a landmark effort that invited a consortium of industry, research institutes and university with expertises in the fields of geology, hydrogeology, geophysics, geomechanics and plant engineering.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.227-242
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• 2012

Youngju multipurpose dam is planned to minimizing the damage by flood and obtaining the water for industrial use in Nakdong river region. Faults in rock mass have strong influences on the behaviors of dam structure. Thus, it is very important to analyse for the characteristics of fault rocks in dam design. However, due to the limitation of geotechnical investigation in design stages, engineers have to carry out the additional geological survey including directional boring to find the distribution of faults and the engineering properties of faults for stability of dam. Especially, the selection of location of dam and type of dam considering fault zone must be analyzed through various experimental and numerical analysis. In this study, various geological survey and field tests were carried out to analyse the characteristics of the large fault zone through the complex dam is designed in foundation region. Also, the distribution of structural geology, the shape of faults and the mechanical properties of fault rock were studied for the reasonable design of the location and type of dam for long-term stability of the complex dam.