• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.333-336
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• 2002

Traditional methods of earth reinforcement consist of introducing strips, fabrics, or grids into an earth mass. Recently, discrete fibers are simply added and mixed with the soil, much the same as cement, lime or other additives. The advantages of randomly distributed fibers is the maintenance of strength isotropy, low decrease in post-peak shear strength and high stability at failure. In this study, new composite reinforcement structures which consist of geotextile and randomly distributed discrete fibers were examined their engineering properties, such as shear strength of the composite reinforced soil. The increments of shear strength of composite reinforced soils were the sum of increments by fiber and woven geotextile respectively.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.61 no.5
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• pp.637-643
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• 2017

Carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRPs) have been recently investigated as an alternative material for Geosynthetics to improve soil properties. One of the factors influencing the fiber orientation and mechanical properties of CFRP is the effect of soil overburden pressure. This study investigates the tensile behavior of cast-in-place CFRP. During the curing time of specimens, a wide range of normal stress is applied on specimens sandwiched between the soils. Two different soil types are used to determine the effect of soil grain size on the mechanical properties of CFRP. Specimens are also prepared with different specifications such as curing time and mixing soil in to the epoxy. In this study, tensile tests are conducted to investigate the effect of such parameters on tensile behavior of CFRP. The experimental results indicate that by increasing the normal stress and soil grain size, the ultimate tensile strength and the corresponding strain of CFRP decrease; however, reduction in elastic modulus is not noticeable. It should be noted that, increasing the curing period of epoxy resin and mixing soil in to the epoxy have no significant effect on the tensile properties of CFRP.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.461-469
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• 2022

One of the most important factors that should be considered for using any ground improvement technique is the stability of stabilized soil and the durability of the provided solution for getting the required engineering properties. Generally, most of the earth structures that are constructed on clayey soils are exposing movements due to the long periods of drying or wetting cycles. Over time, environmental changes may result in swells or settlements for these structures. In order to mitigate this problem, this research has been performed on mixtures of high plasticity clay with traditional additives such as lime, cement and non-traditional additives such as polypropylene fiber. The purpose of the research is to assess the most appropriate ground improvement technique by using commercially available additives for resisting the developed desiccation cracks during the drying process and resisting the volume changes that may result during wet/dry cycles as an attempt to simulate the changes of environmental conditions. The results show that the fiber-reinforced samples have the lowest volumetric deformation in comparision with cement and lime stabilized samples, and the optimum fiber content is identified as 0.38%. In addition, the desiccation cracks were not visible on the samples' surface for both unreinforced and chemically stabilized samples. Regarding cracks resistance resulting from the desiccation process, it is observed, that the resistance is connected with the fiber content and increases with the increase of the fiber inclusion, and the optimum content is between 1% and 1.5%.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.599-611
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• 2022

Tendon reinforced cemented soil is applied extensively in foundation stabilisation and improvement, especially in areas with soft clay. To solve the deterioration problem led by steel corrosion, the glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) tendon is introduced to substitute the traditional steel tendon. The interface bond strength between the cemented soil matrix and GFRP tendon demonstrates the outstanding mechanical property of this composite. However, the lack of research between the influence factors and bond strength hinders the application. To evaluate these factors, back propagation neural network (BPNN) is applied to predict the relationship between them and bond strength. Since adjusting BPNN parameters is time-consuming and laborious, the particle swarm optimisation (PSO) algorithm is proposed. This study evaluated the influence of water content, cement content, curing time, and slip distance on the bond performance of GFRP tendon-reinforced cemented soils (GTRCS). The results showed that the ultimate and residual bond strengths were both in positive proportion to cement content and negative to water content. The sample cured for 28 days with 30% water content and 50% cement content had the largest ultimate strength (3879.40 kPa). The PSO-BPNN model was tuned with 3 neurons in the input layer, 10 in the hidden layer, and 1 in the output layer. It showed outstanding performance on a large database comprising 405 testing results. Its higher correlation coefficient (0.908) and lower root-mean-square error (239.11 kPa) were obtained compared to multiple linear regression (MLR) and logistic regression (LR). In addition, a sensitivity analysis was applied to acquire the ranking of the input variables. The results illustrated that the cement content performed the strongest influence on bond strength, followed by the water content and slip displacement.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.349-352
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• 2002

In this paper, dynamic properties of fiber reinforced soils were investigated at shearing strains between $10^{-4}%\;and\;10^{-1}%$ using resonant column test. Resonant column test has been widely used as a primary laboratory testing technique in investigating dynamic soil properties expressed in term of shear modulus and material damping. At strains above elastic threshold, the variations of shear modulus(G) and damping ratio(D) were investigated. Based on test results, the small strain shear modulus($G_{max}$) and damping ratio($D_{min}$) were determined and the effects of confinement on $G_{max}$ and $D_{min}$ were characterized.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2004.03b
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• pp.968-976
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• 2004

In the paper, deformation characteristics of fiber-mixed-soils, mixed polypropylene staple fibers of 0.3% fiber content with sands of various gradation, and their effectiveness of reinforcement were evaluated. A series of Resonant Column tests were performed with specimens prepared with varying Uniformity Coefficient and constant Curvature Coefficient. Maximum shear moduli 01 fiber-mixed-soils were increased by up to 30% and modulus reduction was also restrained in nonlinear range. Normalized shear modulus reduction curves of fiber-mixed-soils shift close to the upper limit of Seed curd Idriss's curves and are located within narrower band than those of unmixed soils, which proves the effectiveness on stiffness increment by reinforcing soils with fibers.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.757-774
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• 2016

Soils are usually weak in tension therefore different materials such as geosynthetics are used to address this inadequacy. Worldwide annual consumption of geosynthetics is close to $1000million\;m^2$, and the value of these materials is probably close to US$1500 million. Since the total cost of the construction is at least four or five times the cost of the geosynthetic itself, the impact of these materials on civil engineering construction is very large indeed. Nevertheless, there are several significant problems associated with geosynthetics, such as creep, low modulus of elasticity, and susceptibility to aggressive environment. Carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) was introduced over two decades ago in the field of structural engineering that can also be used in geotechnical engineering. CFRP has all the benefits associated with geosynthetics and it boasts higher strength, higher modulus, no significant creep and reliability in aggressive environments. In this paper, the performance of a CFRP reinforced retaining wall is investigated using the finite element method. Since the characterization of behavior of soils and interfaces are vital for reliable prediction from the numerical model, soil and interface properties are obtained from comprehensive laboratory tests. Based on the laboratory results for CFRP, backfill soil, and interface data, the finite element model is used to study the behavior of a CFRP reinforced wall. The finite element model was verified based on the results of filed measurements for a reference wall. Then the reference wall simulated by CFRP reinforcements and the results. The results of this investigations showed that the safety factor of CFRP reinforced wall is more and its deformations is less than those for a retaining wall reinforced with ordinary geosynthetics while their construction costs are in similar range.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2006.03a
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• pp.1014-1023
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• 2006

Soil nailing is a reinforcement method used for stabilizing excavated wall or slope. Due to its many advantages such as ease of construction and economical efficiency, use of soil nailing is increased. However, the soil nail can't trespass on the neighbor private land, which pays rent for use. For this reason, removable soil nailing system was developed. However, the removal rate of this system is just about $50\sim70%$. To solve this, the Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) soil nailing system, which does not need to be removed and allows for the trespass on the private land, is developed. In this paper, through theoretical and experimental studies in laboratory and field, we evaluate the stability and behavior characteristics of the FRP nail system. Besides, numerical analyses using FLAC2D were performed for various soil conditions, where the simulations for pullout tests were carried out. As a result, compared with the conventional removable soil nailing system, the FRP soil nailing systems show similar behavior characteristics.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.345-352
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• 2023

This paper studied the effect of soil-structure interaction (SSI) on the seismic response and retrofit of a reinforced concrete structure with a soft-first story for different soil types. A 5-story structure built on a 30m deep homogeneous soil mass was considered as a case study structure, and steel column jacketing and steel bracing were chosen as seismic retrofit methods. Seismic responses of a fixed-base and a flexible base structure subjected to seven scaled earthquake records were obtained using the software OpenSees to investigate the effect of soil on seismic response and retrofit. The nonlinearBeamColumn elements with the fiber sections were used to simulate the nonlinear behavior of the beams and columns. Soil properties were defined based on shear wave velocity according to categorized site classes defined in ASCE-7. The finite element model of the soil was made using isoparametric four-noded quadrilateral elements and the nonlinear dynamic responses of the combined system of soil and structure were calculated in the OpenSees. The analysis results indicate that the soil-structure interaction plays an important role in the seismic performance and retrofit of a structure with a soft-first story. It was observed that column steel jacketing was effective in the retrofit of the model structure on a fixed base, whereas stronger retrofit measures such as steel bracing were needed when soil-structure interaction was considered.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.29 no.12
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• pp.95-104
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• 2013

Recently, application of CSG is increasing in various design construction projects. At the initial stage of cementation CSG materials show the same mechanical characteristics as soil, however, as the cementation process develops, CSG materials gradually reveal material characteristics of concrete. The hardened CSG manifests elastic behavior such as maximum strength at small strain range and rapid brittle failure. In this research, PVA fiber stiffeners were used in order to: (1) reduce such brittle behavioral characteristics; (2) improve the relatively weak tension performance of CSG materials. The binding strength between the bed materials and fiber prevents rapid brittle failure and increases tensional strength of fiber reinforced CSG materials.Test results show that fiber reinforcement alone could induce the stress-strain characteristics of CSG materials from brittle failure to ductile failure and also increase the residual strength.