• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.205-214
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• 2012

Crack widths play an important role in the serviceability limit state. When crack widths are controlled sufficiently, the reinforcement corrosion can be reduced using only existing concrete cover thickness due to low permeability in the region of finely distributed hair-cracks. Thus, the knowledge about the tensile crack opening is essential in designing more durable concrete structures. Therefore, numerous researches related to the topic have been performed. Nevertheless accurate measurement of a crack width is not a simple task due to several reasons such as unknown potential crack formation location and crack opening damaging strain gages. In order to overcome these difficulties and measure precise crack widths, a displacement measurement system was developed using digital image correlation. Accuracy calibration tests gave an average measurement error of 0.069 pixels and a standard deviation of 0.050 pixels. Direct tensile test was performed using ultra high performance concrete specimens. Crack widths at both notched and unnotched locations were measured and compared with clip-in gages at various loading steps to obtain crack opening profile. Tensile deformation characteristics of concrete were well visualized using displacement vectors and full-field displacement contour maps. The proposed technique made it possible to measure crack widths at arbitrary locations, which is difficult with conventional gages such as clip-in gages or displacement transducers.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.643-659
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• 2022

Geologic sequestration technologies such as CCS (carbon capture and storage), EGS (enhanced geothermal systems), and EOR (enhanced oil recovery) have been widely implemented in recent years, prompting evaluation of the mechanical stability of storage sites. As fluid injection can stimulate mechanical instability in storage layers by perturbing the stress state and pore pressure, poroelastic models considering various injection scenarios are required. In this study, we calculate the pore pressure, stress distribution, and vertical displacement along a surface using commercial finite element software (COMSOL); fault slips are subsequently simulated using PyLith, an open-source finite element software. The displacement fields, are obtained from PyLith is transferred back to COMSOL to determine changes in coseismic stresses and surface displacements. Our sequential use of COMSOL-PyLith-COMSOL for poroelastic modeling of fluid-injection and induced-earthquakes reveals large variations of pore pressure, vertical displacement, and Coulomb failure stress change during injection periods. On the other hand, the residual stress diffuses into the remote field after injection stops. This flow pattern suggests the necessity of numerical modeling and long-term monitoring, even after injection has stopped. We found that the time at which the Coulomb failure stress reaches the critical point greatly varies with the hydraulic and poroelastic properties (e.g., permeability and Biot-Willis coefficient) of the fault and injection layer. We suggest that an understanding of the detailed physical properties of the surrounding layer is important in selecting the injection site. Our numerical results showing the surface displacement and deviatoric stress distribution with different amounts of fault slip highlight the need to test more variable fault slip scenarios.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.5-19
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to figure out the effect of pressurized grouting on the pullout resistance and the group effect of the compression ground anchor by performing pilot-scale chamber tests and field tests. The laboratory tests are carried out for 3-types of soils which are abundant in the Korean peninsular. Experimental results showed that the enlargement of anchor diameters estimated from the cavity expansion theory matches reasonable well with that obtained from experiments. Moreover, the required injection time as a function of the coefficient of permeability of each soil type was proposed. A series of in-situ anchor pullout tests were also performed to experimentally figure out the effect of pressurized grouting on the pullout resistance. Experimental results also showed that the effect of the pressurized grouting is more prominent in a softer ground with smaller SPT-N value in all of the following three aspects: increase in anchor diameter; pullout resistance; and surface roughness. The pressurized grouting effect in comparison with gravitational grouting was found to be almost nil if the SPT-N value is more than 50. Based on experimental results, a new equation to estimate the pullout resistance as a function of the SPT-N value was proposed. And based on in-situ group anchor pullout tests results, a new group effect equation was proposed which might be applicable to decomposed residual soils which are abundant in the Korean peninsular.