• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.353-367
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• 2023

The construction of a protective embankment is a suitable strategy to stop and control high-energy rock blocks' impacts during the rockfall phenomenon. In this paper, based on the discrete element numerical method, by modeling an existing embankment reinforced with geogrid, its stability status under the impact of a rock block with two types of low and high kinetic energy, namely 2402 and 4180 kJ, respectively, has been investigated. The modeling results show that the use of geogrid has caused the displacement in the front and back of the embankment to decrease by more than 30%. In this case, the reinforced embankment has stopped the rock block earlier. The displacements obtained from the DEM modeling are compared with the displacements measured from an actual practical experiment to evaluate the results' validity. Comparison between the results shows that the displacement values are close together, while the maximum percentage error in previous studies by an analytical method and the finite element method was 76.4% and 36.6%, respectively. Therefore, the obtained results indicate the discrete numerical method's high ability compared to other numerical and analytical methods to simulate and design the geogrid-reinforced soil embankment under natural disasters such as rockfall with a minor error.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.65-74
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• 2020

In earth pressure balance (EPB) shield TBM tunnelling, the application of soil conditioning which improves properties of the excavated muck by additives injection, is generally used for enhancing the performance of TBM. Therefore it is important to apply the soil conditioning in the numerical model which simulates excavation performance of TBM equipment, but related studies on a method that simulates soil conditioning are insufficient to date. Accordingly, in this study, an laboratory pressurized vane test apparatus was devised to evaluate the characteristics of conditioned soil. Using the apparatus, the vane shear tests were performed on foam-conditioned soil with different shear rates, and the test was numerically simulated with discrete element method (DEM). Finally, the contact properties of particles in DEM were determined by comparing the results of test and analysis, and it indicates that the applicability of pressurized vane test and DEM model for reproducing soil conditioning in TBM excavation model with DEM.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.117-127
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the effect of in-situ rock stresses on the deformability and permeability of fractured rocks. Geological data were taken from the site investigation at Forsmark, Sweden, conducted by Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Man-agement Company (SKB). A set of numerical experiments was conducted to determine the equivalent mechanical properties (essentially, elastic moduli and Poisson's ratio) and permeability, using a Discrete Fracture Network-Discrete Element Method (DFN-DEM) approach. The results show that both mechanical properties and permeability are highly dependent on stress because of the hyperbolic nature of the stiffness of fractures, different closure behavior of fractures, and change of fluid pathways caused by deformation. This study shows that proper characterization and consideration of in-situ stress are important not only for boundary conditions of a selected site but also for the understanding of the mechanical and hydraulic behavior of fractured rocks.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.274-283
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• 2000

A dynamic explicit finite element code for simulating sheet forming processes has been developed. The code utilizes the discrete Kirchhoff shell element and contact force is treated by a conventional penalty method. In order to reduce the computational cost, a new and robust contact searching algorithm has been developed and implemented into the code. In the method, a hierarchical structure of tool segments is built for each tool at the initial stage of the analysis. hierarchical structure is built in a way to divide a box to 8 sub-boxes, 2 in each direction, until the lowest level of the hierarchical structure contains exactly one segment of the tool or empty. Then at each time step, contact is checked from the box to sub-boxes hierarchically for each node. Comparisons of computational results of various examples with the existing ones show the validity of the method.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.329-342
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• 2008

A local behavior law, which includes elasticity, plasticity and damage, is developed in a three dimensional numerical model for concrete. The model is based on the Discrete Element Method (DEM)and the computational implementation has been carried out in the numerical Code YADE. This model was used to study the response of a concrete slab impacted by a rigid missile, and focuses on the extension of the compacted zone. To do so, the model was first used to simulate compression and hydrostatic tests. Once the local constitutive law parameters of the discrete element model were calibrated, the numerical model simulated the impact of a rigid missile used as a reference case to be compared to an experimental data set. From this reference case, simulations were carried out to show the importance of compaction during an impact and how it expands depending on the different impact conditions. Moreover, the numerical results were compared to empirical predictive formulae for penetration and perforation cases, demonstrating the importance of taking into account the local compaction process in the local interaction law between discrete elements.

• Journal of KSNVE
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.632-642
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• 1998

A method based on finite element discretization is developed for optimizing the polarization profile of PVDF film to create the modal transducer for specific modes. Using this concept, one can design the modal transducer in two-dimensional structure having arbitrary geometry and boundary conditions. As a practical means for implementing this polarization profile without repoling the PVDF film the polarization profile is approximated by optimizing electrode patterns, lamination angles, and poling directions of the multi-layered PVDF transducer. This corresponds to the approximation of a continuous function using discrete values. The electrode pattern of each PVDF layer is optimized by deciding the electrode of each finite element to be used or not. Genetic algorithm, suitable for discrete problems, is used as an optimization scheme. For the optimization of each layers lamination angle, the continuous lamination angle is encoded into discrete value using binary 5 bit string. For the experimental demonstration, a modal sensor for first and second modes of cantilevered composite plate is designed using two layers of PVDF films. The actuator is designed based on the criterion of minimizing the system energy in the control modes under a given initial condition. Experimental results show that the signals from residual modes are successfully reduced using the optimized multi-layered PVDF sensor. Using discrete LQG control law, the modal peaks of first and second modes are reduced in the amount of 12 dB and 4 dB, resepctively.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.256-264
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• 2004

The granular flow has been numerically studied by using DEM(Discrete Element Method). The eve교 particle is checked if it collides neighbor particles, and the next motion of the particle is predicted. The computing time has been drastically reduced by improving the collision check against neighboring particles. The comparison of the present method with ail experiment for the vibrating floor problem shows the good accuracy. The broken tower problem has been calculated to show the good comparison with the other computational result. This DEM(Discrete Element Method) can be a useful tool for constructing the constitute equation of the continuum approach of the granular flow.

• Bulletin of the Korean Mathematical Society
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• v.57 no.1
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• pp.219-244
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• 2020

In this paper, we approximate the solution of the coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equations by using a fully discrete finite element scheme based on the standard Galerkin method in space and implicit midpoint discretization in time. The proposed scheme guarantees the conservation of the total mass and the energy. First, a priori error estimates for the fully discrete Galerkin method is derived. Second, the existence of the approximated solution is proved by virtue of the Brouwer fixed point theorem. Moreover, the uniqueness of the solution is shown. Finally, convergence orders of the fully discrete Crank-Nicolson scheme are discussed. The end of the paper is devoted to some numerical experiments.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.27-37
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• 2020

Structural optimization problems with discrete design variables require more function calculations (or finite element analyses) than those in the continuous design space. In this study, a method to find an optimal solution in the discrete design of the truss structure is presented, reducing the number of function calculations. Because a continuous optimal solution is the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker point that satisfies the optimality condition, it is assumed that the discrete optimal solution is around the continuous optimum. Then, response values such as weight, displacement, and stress are predicted using approximate models-referred to as hybrid metamodels-within specified design ranges. The discrete design method using the hybrid metamodels is used as a post-process of the continuous optimization process. Standard truss design problems of 10-bar, 25-bar, 15-bar, and 52-bar are solved to show the usefulness of this method. The results are compared with those of existing methods.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.815-827
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• 2015

The mechanical behavior of soil and soil-rock mixture is investigated via the discrete element method. A non-overlapping combination method of spheres is used to model convex polyhedron rock blocks of soil-rock mixture in the DEM simulations. The meso-mechanical parameters of soil and soil-rock interface in DEM simulations are obtained from the in-situ tests. Based on the Voronoi cell, a method representing volumtric strain of the sample at the particle scale is proposed. The numerical results indicate that the particle rotation, occlusion, dilatation and self-organizing force chains are a remarkable phenomena of the localization band for the soil and soil-rock mixture samples. The localization band in a soil-rock mixture is wider than that in the soil sample. The current research shows that the 3D discrete element method can effectively simulate the mechanical behavior of soil and soil-rock mixture.