• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2009.09a
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• pp.133-144
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• 2009

Incheon Bridge, 18.4 km long sea-crossing bridge, will be opened to the traffic in October 2009 and this will be the new landmark of the gearing up north-east Asia as well as the largest & longest bridge of Korea. Incheon Bridge is the integrated set of several special featured bridges including a magnificent cable-stayed girder bridge which has a main span of 800 m width to cross the navigation channel in and out of the Port of Incheon. Incheon Bridge is making an epoch of long-span bridge designs thanks to the fully application of the AASHTO LRFD (load & resistance factor design) to both the superstructures and the substructures. A state-of-the-art of the geotechnologies which were applied to the Incheon Bridge construction project is introduced. The most Large-diameter drilled shafts were penetrated into the bedrock to support the colossal superstructures. The bearing capacity and deformational characteristics of the foundations were verified through the world's largest static pile load test. 8 full-scale pilot piles were tested in both offshore site and onshore area prior to the commencement of constructions. Compressible load beyond 30,000 tonf pressed a single 3 m diameter foundation pile by means of bi-directional loading method including the Osterberg cell techniques. Detailed site investigation to characterize the subsurface properties had been carried out. Geotextile tubes, tied sheet pile walls, and trestles were utilized to overcome the very large tidal difference between ebb and flow at the foreshore site. 44 circular-cell type dolphins surround the piers near the navigation channel to protect the bridge against the collision with aberrant vessels. Each dolphin structure consists of the flat sheet piled wall and infilled aggregates to absorb the collision impact. Geo-centrifugal tests were performed to evaluate the behavior of the dolphin in the seabed and to verify the numerical model for the design. Rip-rap embankments on the seabed are expected to prevent the scouring of the foundation. Prefabricated vertical drains, sand compaction piles, deep cement mixings, horizontal natural-fiber drains, and other subsidiary methods were used to improve the soft ground for the site of abutments, toll plazas, and access roads. Light-weight backfill using EPS blocks helps to reduce the earth pressure behind the abutment on the soft ground. Some kinds of reinforced earth like as MSE using geosynthetics were utilized for the ring wall of the abutment. Soil steel bridges made of corrugated steel plates and engineered backfills were constructed for the open-cut tunnel and the culvert. Diverse experiences of advanced designs and constructions from the Incheon Bridge project have been propagated by relevant engineers and it is strongly expected that significant achievements in geotechnical engineering through this project will contribute to the national development of the longspan bridge technologies remarkably.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.85-91
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• 2010

As enormous construction projects of land development are carried out around Korea, useful construction materials are needed to perform the construction projects. However, there are no more enough of fill and reclamation materials in our country. That is why the coal ash is expected to be utilized as an alternative material. Since the coal ash has the characteristics of a pozzolan and a selfhardening material, it is adjudged that coal ash has a great possibility to be used as a fill and reclamation material. In this study, grain size analysis, Atterberg limit test, and specific gravity test were performed to examine the physical characteristics of the coal ash about a self-hardening material before utilizing the coal ash in the construction. Compaction test, unconfined compression test, direct shear test, and flexible wall permeability test were conducted to investigate the engineering characteristics according to mixture ratios of fly ash and bottom ash. As a result of the tests, it was confirmed that the mixing ratio 1:1 of fly ash and bottom ash is the most effective to use as a fill and reclamation material. If the mixture of coal ash is used as a backfill material with light weight around structure, it is expected to play a significant role in reducing earth pressure on the back of the structure. As the age of the mixture of coal ash goes by, it intends to decrease the coefficient of permeability. As described above, the coal ash should be considered as an alternative material of fill and reclamation materials since the result of the tests indicates that the coal ash is suitable to a useful material on the construction design.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.11-25
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• 2023

In this study, the design and numerical analysis method of the inclined self-supported wall using cement treated soil were studied. In the case of the inclined self-supported wall, the active earth pressure decreased due to the decrease in the coefficient, Ka according to the slope (angle) and the weight decreasing effect, thereby increasing the overall stability. The wall with the slope caused a change in failure mode from overturning to sliding on the excavation side, and the optimal slope was evaluated to be about 10°. Compared to the strength reduction method, the overall stability in numerical analysis results in conservative results in limit equilibrium analysis, so it was found that this method should be attended when designing. As a result of the parameteric study, the stability on bearing capacity and compression failure did not significantly increase above the slope of 10° when the surcharge was small (about 20kPa or less). In the case of cohesion of the backfill, The results similar to numerical analysis were found to consider cohesion. It was evaluated that stability on sliding, oveturning, shear, and tension failure increases in proportion to the thickness of the wall, but there is no significant change in the stability on the bearing capacity and compressive failure regardless of the thickness of the wall above a certain angle (about 10°).

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.25-32
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• 2007

Because of the increasing use of clayey soil as the backfill in reinfurced soil structures and embankments, nonwoven geotextiles of drain capability have been receiving much attention. However, there are few studies on the deformation behavior analysis of nonwoven geotextiles in reinforced soil structures in the site because nonwoven geotextiles which have low tensile stiffness and higher deformability than geogrids and woven geotextiles, are difficult to measure their deformation by using strain gauges. In this study, it was suggested that a new and more convenient method could measure the deformation behaviour of nonwoven geotextile using a strain gauge and examine the availability of the method by conducting laboratory tests and applying to two geosynthetics reinforced soil (GRS) walls in the site. The result of wide-width tensile test conducted under confining pressure of 70 kPa shows that the local deformation of nonwoven geotextile to be measured with strain gauges has a similar pattern to the total deformation measured with LVDT. In the GRS walls, nonwoven geotextile shows a larger deformation range than the woven geotextile and geogrid. However, the deformation patterns of these three reinforcement materials are similar. The function of strain gauges attached to nonwoven geotextile in the walls works normally for 16 months. Therefore, the method proposed in this study for measuring nonwoven geotextile deformation using a strain gauge has proved useful.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.491-501
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• 2022

Bentonite has been proposed as a buffer and backfill material for high-level radioactive waste repository. Under such repository environment conditions, bentonite is subjected to combined thermal, hydrological, mechanical, and chemical processes. This study evaluates the feasibility of applying X-ray CT technology on the characterization of bentonite under hydration conditions using a newly developed testing cell. The cylindrical cell is made of platic material, with a removable cap to place the sample, enabling to apply vertical pressure on the sample and to measure swelling pressure. The hydration test was carried out with a sample made of Gyeonju bentonite, with a dry density of 1.4 g/cm³, and a water content of 20%. The sample had a diameter of 27.5 mm and a height of 34 mm. During the test, water was injected at a constant pressure of 0.207 MPa, and lasted for 7 days. After one day of hydration, bentonite swelled and filled out the space inside the cell. Moreover, CT histograms showed how the hydration process induced an initial increase and later progressive decrease on the density of the sample. Detailed profiles of the mean CT value, CT standard deviation, and CT gradient provided more details on the hydration process of the sample and showed how the bottom and top regions exhibited a decrease on density while the middle region showed an increase, especially during the first two days of hydration. Later, the differences in CT values with respect to the initial state decreased, and were small at the end of testing. The formation and later reduction of cracks was also characterized through CT scanning.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.323-328
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• 2002

Soil-steel structures have been used for the underpass, or drainage systems in the road embankment. This type of structures sustain external load using the correlations with the steel wall and engineered backfill materials. Buried flexible conduits made of corrugated steel plates for the coastal road was tested under vehicle loading to investigate the effects of live load. Testing conduits was a circular structure with a diameter of 6.25m. Live-load tests were conducted on two sections, one of which an attempt was made to reinforce the soil cover with the two layers of geo-gird. Hoop fiber strains of corrugated plate, normal earth pressures exerted outside the structure, and deformations of structure were instrumented during the tests. This paper describes the measured static and dynamic load responses of structure. Wall thrust by vehicle loads increased mainly at the crown and shoulder part of the conduit. However additional bending moment by vehicle loads was neglectable. The effectiveness of geogrid-reinforced soil cover on reducing hoop thrust is also discussed based on the measurements in two sections of the structure. The maximum thrusts at the section with geogrid-reinforced soil cover was 85-92% of those with un-reinforced soil cover in the static load tests of the circular structure; this confirms the beneficial effect of soil cover reinforcement on reducing the hoop thrust. However, it was revealed that the two layers of geogrid had no effect on reducing the overburden pressure at the crown level of structure. The obtained values of DLA decrease approximately in proportion to the increase in soil cover from 0.9m to 1.5m. These values are about 1.2-1.4 times higher than those specified in CHBDC.