• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.27 no.11
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• pp.55-69
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• 2011

The importance of unsaturated state in various geo-engineering problems has led to the advance of mechanical constitutive model emulating behavior of unsaturated soils in response to thermo-hydro-mechanical loading. Elasto-plastic mechanical constitutive model for unsaturated soil is formulated based on Bishop's effective stress. Effective stress and temperature are main variables in constitutive equation, and incremental formulation of constitutive relationship is derived to compute stress update and stiffness tensor. Numerical simulations involving coupled THM processes are conducted to discuss numerical stability and applicability of developed constitutive model: one-dimensional test, tri-axial compression test, and clay-buffering at high level radioactive waste disposal. Numerical results demonstrated that developed model can predict very complex behavior of coupled THM phenomena and is applicable to geo-engineering problems under various environmental conditions, as well as interpret typical behavior of unsaturated soils.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.48 no.7
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• pp.35-43
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• 2006

This study was carried out to investigate the liquefaction behaviour and predict deviator stress with matric suction, of unsaturated silty sand. The unsaturated soil tests were conducted using a modified triaxial cell and specimens were prepared using the moisture tamping method. The axis translation technique was used to create the desired matric suctions in the specimen. Undrained triaxial compression tests were carried out at matric suction of 0, 2, 5, 10 and 25 kPa. The specimens were sheared to axial strains of about 20% to obtain steady state conditions. The results showed that liquefaction of silty sand only occurs at matric suction of 0 kPa and 2 kPa. The results also show that at matric suctions of 5, 10 and 25 kPa, the resistance to liquefaction increases. As the suction increases, the undrained effective stress path approached the drained stress path. Also, the predicted and measured maximum deviator stress for unsaturated soils using the effective stress concept showed good agreement as matric suction increases. The deviator stress increase is nonlinear as matric suction increases.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.27-38
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• 2003

The characteristics and prediction model of the shear strength of unsaturated residual granite soils were studied in this paper. In order to investigate the influence of the net normal stress on the shear strength, unsaturated triaxial tests and SWCC tests were carried out by varying the net normal stress. Experimental data for unsaturated shear strength tests were compared with predicted shear strength envelopes obtained from existing prediction models. It was shown that the soil-water characteristic curve and the shear strength of the unsaturated soil varied with the change of the net normal stress. Therefore, to achieve a truly descriptive shear strength envelope for unsaturated soils, the effect of the normal stress on the contribution of matric suction to the shear strength has to be taken into consideration. In this paper, a modified prediction model f3r the unsaturated shear strength was proposed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers Conference
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.361-366
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• 2005

Since most soils exist above the ground water table, negative pore pressure exist in unsaturated soils. Negative pore water pressure in unsaturated soil affects the soil structure and degree of saturation and it is important for accurate evaluation of unsaturate flow and behavior. This negative pore pressure is called a matric suction which causes an increased shear strength. Therefore, it is required that the effect of increase in the shear strength should be included in a geotechnical analysis. From the test result, the influence of net confining pressure and matric suction on the shear strength was analyzed and strength parameter was increased with matric suction increase and a unliner relationship was found to relate matric suction and shear strength.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Hazard Mitigation
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• v.4 no.2 s.13
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• pp.19-27
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• 2004

The interest in the dynamic properties of soils has increased strongly because of earthquake, heavy traffic, and foundations undergo high amplitude of vibrations. Most of soils in Korean peninsula are composed of granite soils, especially the decomposed mudstone soils are widely spread in Pohang areas, Kyong-buk province. Therefore, it is very important to investigate the dynamic properties of these types of soils. The most important soil parameters under dynamic loadings are shear modulus and material dampings. Furthermore, few definitive data exist that can evaluate the behavior of unsaturated decomposed mudstone soils under dynamic loading conditions. The investigations described in this paper is designed to identify the shear modulus and damping ratio due to a surface tension for the unsaturated decomposed mudstone soils under low and high strain amplitude. For this purpose, the resonant column test and the cyclic triaxial test were performed. Test results and data have shown that the optimum saturated degree of decomposed mudstone soils under low and strain amplitude is $32{\sim}37%$ which is higher than that of decomposed granite due to the amount of fine particles as well as the type and proportion of chief rock-forming minerals.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2006.03a
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• pp.28-33
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• 2006

Shallow failures of slopes in weathered soils are caused by infiltration due to prolonged rainfall. These failures are mainly triggered by the deepening of the wetting band accompanied by a decrease in suction induced by the water infiltration. In this paper, hysteresis on soil-water characteristic curve(SWCC) of granite and gneiss weathered soils are investigated using transient flow analysis respectively. Each case was subjected to artificial rainfall intensities and time duration depending on the laboratory-based drying and wetting processes. The results show that the unsaturated seepage on weathered slopes are very much affected by the initial suction of soils and unsaturated permeability of the soils. In addition, a granite weathered soil has a lower air-entry value, residual matric suction, and wetting front suction and less hysteresis loop than a gneiss weathered soil.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.7 no.5
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• pp.31-39
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• 2006

In this study, modified triaxial compression tests were carried out to investigate the characteristics of shear strength of unsaturated dredged soils. The variation of shear strength generally depends on more matric suction than drained conditions, and then is gradually converged in matric suction 100kPa. It indicates that the effective angle of internal friction and effective cohesion in unsaturated conditions increase due to degree of saturation, namely, matric suction than those of saturated conditions. Therefore, it shows that apparent friction angle, ${\phi}^b$ due to the variation of matric suction to evaluate reasonable shear strength parameters in unsaturated soils should be considered.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.54 no.4
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• pp.93-103
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• 2012

A suction-saturation control technique based on flow pump system was developed to investigate hydraulic properties in unsaturated soils. The flow pump system is designed based on the principle of the axis-translation technique and triaxial equipment, and gives the suction-time and suction-saturation curves, the primary relationship needed for interpreting the response of unsaturated soils and link between theory and the material properties in unsaturated soil mechanics. Using the suction-saturation control technique, suction-time relationship and soil-water retention curve (SWRC) during hydraulic hysteresis were investigated with different net confining pressures and porosities. Three types of soils-two sands and a silt were used in this paper. This paper showed the effect of the hysteresis on the SWRC due to different net confining pressures and porosities. This means that a careful decision must be made as to which condition is to be modeled, since the delicate difference of the conditions in physical modeling can cause the different experimental output.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2008.03a
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• pp.105-110
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• 2008

The behaviour of an unsaturated soil was analyzed by performing $K_0$ consolidated triaxial tests. Unsaturated triaxial tests were performed with matric suctions for weathered soils and could catch stress paths under consolidation and stress-strain relationships under shear. As a result, both isotropic and $K_0$ conditions had similar shear strength envelopes in the same matric suction. Especially, strength parameters could obtain by stress variables based on critical state theory reasonably which was better than those by Mohr circles at failure.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2010.03a
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• pp.679-686
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• 2010

Mechanical characteristics of bottom ash produced in coal-fired power plant are investigated to utilize as light-weight fill materials. Triaxial compression test, water retention test, and unsaturated direct shear test were conducted for weathered soil (WS), reclaimed bottom ash (RBA), and screened bottom ash (BA). RBA had larger frictional angle and lower effective cohesion than those of WS. Water retention charactersitics of RBA and BA existed within distributions of soil-water characteristic curves for domestic weathered soils. Unsaturated shear strength of RBA was similar to that of WS at matric suctions of 50 kPa and 100 kPa. As a conclusion, bottom ash can be used as fill materials to replace the conventional construction materials by.