• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.41-49
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• 2012

In this study, laboratory test, in-situ vane shear test and piezocone penetration test in the study area were conducted to investigate the engineering characteristics of soft soils at Cheongra District, Songdo District in Incheon City, the west coast of Gyeonggi province, and Sihwa District in Ansan city. The correlations among compression index, and in-situ vane shear test, and cone resistance were obtained. The variations of liquid limit, plasticity index, water content and compression index with respect to depth exhibit strong similarity. This means that they have strong correlations, which can be used to evaluate the local characteristics of the study area. Thus, the correlations between compression index and physical properties were analysed to investigate the engineering characteristics of soft soil in the study area. The relationships between the measured piezocone factor by empirical methods, and undrained shear strength obtained by triaxial compression test or in-situ vane shear test were compared. It shows the significant correlation and piezocone factors, $N_{kT}$are suggested for the study area.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.15-24
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• 2001

In order to evaluate undrained shear strength of clayey soils using Piezocone Penetration Test (CPTu), piezoncone factor is utilized. Commonly, piezoncone factors determined by empirical basis were preferred, which were established by correlation between measurements of piezocone test and undrained strengths obtained from other shearing tests. However, previous studies on the empirical piezocone factors were site-specific and there have been no systematic investigations on the effect of both engineering characteristics of clayey soils and soil non-homogeneity on the piezocone factor. Accordingly, the direct application of the previous results to Korean clayey soils without verification may be inappropriate. In this study, empirical piezocone factors are evaluated by comparing 46 CPTu results of 10 test sites with undrained shear strength obtained from Field Vane Test (FVT) and laboratory triaxial tests. Their reliabilities are investigated by the comparison with the previous piezocone factors and the deviation of data distribution from the mean values. And the effects of referencing test methods and typical engineering characteristics of clayey soils such as overconsolidation ratio (OCR) and plastic Index (I$_{p}$) are examined. Because piezocone factors obtained for various soil conditions are widely distributed, it is not appropriate to use the mean value as a representative. Instead, it is recommended to apply the piezocone factors with OCR, which is found to be a major factor in deriving piezocone factor. The necessitated piezocone factors are presented.d.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.125-140
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• 2018

Tianjin, which is located on the west shore of the Bohai Sea, is part of China's Circum-Bohai-Sea Region, where very weak clay is deposited. From the 1970s to the early $21^{st}$ century, Tianjin marine clay deposits have been the subject of numerous geotechnical investigations. Because of these deposits' geological complexity, great depositional thickness, high water content, large void ratio, excessive settlement, and low shear strength, the geotechnical properties of Tianjin marine clay need to be summarized and evaluated based on various in situ and laboratory tests so that Tianjin can safely and economically sustain more infrastructure in the coming decades. In this study, the properties of Tianjin marine clay, especially its consolidation properties, are summarized, evaluated and discussed. The focus is on establishing correlations between the geotechnical property indexes and mechanical parameters of Tianjin marine clay. These correlations include the correlations between the water content and the void ratio, the depth and the undrained shear strength, the liquid limit and the compression index, the tip resistance and the constrained modulus, the plasticity index and the ratio of undrained shear strength and the preconsolidation pressure. In addition, the primary consolidation properties of Tianjin marine clay, such as the intrinsic compression line (ICL), sedimentation compression line (SCL), compression index, $C_c$, coefficient of consolidation, $C_v$, and hydraulic conductivity change index, $C_{kv}$, are evaluated and discussed. A secondary consolidation property, i.e., the secondary compression index, $C_a$, is also investigated, and the results show that the ratio of $C_a/C_c$ for Tianjin marine clay can be used to calculate $C_a$ in secondary consolidation settlement predictions.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.511-523
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• 2023

Canal-side roads frequently collapse due to an unexpectedly greater soft-clay thickness with a rapid drawdown situation. This causes annually increased repair and reconstruction costs. This paper aims to explore the effect of soft-clay thickness on the failure in the canal-side road in the case study of Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya rural road no. 1043 (AY. 1043). Before the actual construction, a field vane shear test was performed to determine the undrained shear strength and identify the thickness of the soft clay at the AY. 1043 area. After establishing the usability of AY. 1043, the resistivity survey method was used to evaluate the thickness of the soft clay layer at the failure zone. The screw driving sounding test was used to evaluate the undrained shear strength for the road structure with a medium-stiff clay layer at the failure zone for applying to the numerical model. This model was simulated to confirm the effect of soft-clay thickness on the failure of the canal-side road. The monitoring and testing results showed the tendency of rapid drawdown failure when the canal-side road was located on > 9 m thick of soft clay with a sensitivity > 4.5. The result indicates that the combination of resistivity survey and field vane shear test can be successfully used to inspect the soft-clay thickness and sensitivity before construction. The preliminary design for preventing failure or improving the stability of the canal-side road should be considered before construction under the critical thickness and sensitivity values of the soft clay.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.51-59
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• 2008

In this study, cyclic shear characterics of sand-clay mixtures were analyzed. In order to perform cyclic triaxial tests on sand clay mixtures, natural clays with activity and silica sand were mixed variously to reproduce soils with wide range of grain size compositions. Test specimens with various fines contents were prepared by the moisture compaction and pre-consolidation methods, while paying attention to the void ratio expressed in terms of the sand structure and clay structures, and undrained cyclic shear tests were performed. In the test results, cyclic shear strength decreased with increasing of sand granular void ratio below 20% of fine contents. When the granular void ratio of the test specimen exceeded the maximum void ratio of the silica sand, the clay matrix dominated the soil structure, and soil structures were not influenced by compaction energy. It was observed that, the matrix structure of the coarse particles has great effect on the undrained cyclic shear strength characteristics for sand-clay mixtures, and therefore, it is more appropriate to pay more attention to the density of the sand structure, rather than to the fines content.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.85-94
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• 2006

Triaxial tests at isotropic confining pressure of 200 kPa were carried out to show the undrained shear behavior of artificially cemented sands, which were cemented by gypsum, and the influences of relative density and DOC (degree of cementation) were investigated from the results. The yield strength, the elastic secant modulus at yield point and the peak frictional angle of cemented sands increased abruptly compared to uncemented sands, and it was checked that cementation exerts more influence on the behavior of sand than the relative density. But after breakage of the cementation bonds, the relative density was more important factor on the behavior of sand than the cementation. Because the compressibility md the excess pore pressure of cemented sands were reduced due to the cementation bonds, the effective stress path of cemented sands was going toward to the total stress path of uncemented sands. The cementation of sand restricted the dialtion of sand at the pre-yield condition, but induced more dilation in the post-yield condition.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.24 no.11
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• pp.79-89
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• 2008

In this study, a series of undrained cyclic triaxial tests were performed with three different consolidation stress ratios ($K_c$=1.0, 1.5, 2.0) to investigate the undrained shear strength characteristics of sands with respect to the amount of contained silt located around the basin of Nak-dong River. The test results show that the more the sand has silt, the lower is cyclic shear stress ratio (CSR) in all $K_c$ and that the higher $K_c$ goes, the larger CSR decreases due to the increase of contained silt. The excessive pore pressure caused during shearing has an influence on the decrease of CSR by the high initial pore pressure in proportion to the amount of contained silt regardless of the $K_c$ value. After consolidation, the analysis of the skeleton void ratio of the sample reveals that the main cause of the decrease of CSR as well as the increase of the initial excessive pore pressure is the increase of the skeleton void ratio in proportion to the amount of contained silt.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.59-67
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• 2019

Using the results from laboratory soil test, field vane test and piezocone penetration test, the engineering characteristics of the soft ground at east side of Gwangyang Port, which is located at south coast of Jeollanam-do, were investigated and optimal piezocone penetration test depth was derived to calculate piezocone factor. In this paper, the results of 61 laboratory soil tests, 226 times of field vane tests and 26 piezocone penetration tests were used. The result of laboratory soil test suggested that some physical properties such as specific gravity, moisture content, liquid limit and plastic index and others are higher than other south coast regions, meanwhile uniaxial compression strength, undrained shear strength, defined as mechanical property, appeared to be relatively small, distributed widely. According to the plastic chart, the ground was classified as high compressibility clay and low compressibility clay, mostly represent to Type 3 clay by Robertson (1990)'s classification chart. Piezocone factor was calculated by empirical method, based on the undrained shear strength which was obtained by the field vane test. According to the analysis with 3 different depth range, to set the appropriate measured depth range of piezocone penetration for comparation, using average value of the range of 5 times the vane length showed the highest correlation.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.435-445
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• 2019

A series of element tests with different drainage conditions and strain rates were performed on compacted unsaturated non-plastic silt in unconfined conditions. Soil samples were compacted at water contents from dry to wet of optimum with the degree of saturation varying from 24 to 59.5% while maintaining the degree of compaction at 80%. The tests performed were shear infiltration tests in which specimens had constant net confining pressure, pore air pressure was kept drained and constant, just before the shear process pore water pressure was increased (and kept constant afterwards) to decrease matric suction and to start water infiltration. In constant water content tests, specimens had constant net confining pressure, pore air pressure was kept drained and constant whereas pore water pressure was kept undrained. As a result, the matric suction varied with increase in axial strain throughout the shearing process. In both cases, maximum shear strength was obtained for specimens prepared on dry side of optimum moisture content. Moreover, the gradient of stress path was not affected under different strain rates whereas the intercept of failure was changed due to the drainage conditions implied in this study.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.93-101
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• 2017

In this study, a subjective weighting factors were awarded based on some indication of the difficulty of assessing the preconsolidation stress using traditional methods (Casagrande, Onitsuka et al., Silva, Becker et al., Janbu and Karlsrud methods) such as those proposed by Casagrande and Janbu using undisturbed sample obtained from Gwangyang dredged clay with high plasticity located in the southern area of Korean peninsular. These numbers only assess the relative ease of finding preconsolidation stress and say nothing regarding the accuracy of the value. The data were compared with measurements of undrained shear strength using strength incremental ratio, checking where or not the values are in the range of 0.25 to 0.35 (typical values of Korean marine clay) and analyzing standard deviation(degree of variability). The measurements of undrained shear strength were obtained from unconfined compression tests (UCT). When determining preconsolidation stress of Korean marine clay, at first, the work method proposed by Becker et al. and the bilogarithmic method proposed by Onitsuka et al. should be used. In addition, preconsolidation pressure should be estimated using the traditional Casagrande method as a basic of comparison.