• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2008.03a
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• pp.119-126
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• 2008

Ground stiffness(shear wave velocity) is one of the key parameters in geotechnical earthquake engineering. An In-situ seismic technique has its own advantages and disadvantages over the others in stiffness measurements. By combining the crosshole and seismic cone techniques and utilizing favourable features of bender elements, a new hybrid probe has been developed in order to enhance data quality and easiness of testing. The basic structure of the probe, called "MudFork", is a fork composed of two blades, on each of which source and receiver bender elements were mounted respectively. To evaluate the disturbance caused by the penetration of the probe, shear wave velocity measurements were carried out in the Kaolinite slurry in the laboratory. Finally, the probe was penetrated in coastal mud near Incheon, Korea, using SPT(standard penetration test)rods pushed with a routine boring machine and shear wave velocity measurements were carried out. The results were verified with data from laboratory and cone testing. The performance of the probe turns out to be excellent in terms of data quality and testing convenience.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.3C
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• pp.187-196
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• 2008

An earthquake of magnitude 5.0 occurred at Ssang-gye-sa, a Buddhist temple in Jirisan, located near the southern border of the Korean peninsula on 4 July 1936. It resulted in severe damage of several buildings and structures in Ssang-gye-sa. Particularly, the top component of a five-story stone pagoda in the temple was tipped over and fell down during the earthquake. This earthquake damage case would be usefully applied to estimating the intensity of ground motion in the Korean peninsula, a moderate seismicity region, where strong motion has never been recorded with the exception of historic seismic events. In order to estimate the local site effects and the corresponding ground motion at Ssang-gye-sa site, intensive site investigations including borehole drilling and in-situ seismic tests such as crosshole and SASW tests were performed in the temple area. Based on the site characteristics, site-specific seismic response analyses using various input motions were conducted for a representative Ssang-gye-sa site by means of both one-dimensional equivalent-linear and nonlinear methods with six input rock outcrop acceleration levels ranging from 0.044g to 0.220g. The resultant site-specific seismic responses indicated the amplified ground motions in the short-period range near the site period of Ssang-gye-sa. Furthermore, the intensity on rock outcrop of the 1936 Jirisan earthquake was estimated by making a comparison between the site responses analysis results in this study and the full-scaled seismic test of pagoda model in the prior study.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.13-19
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• 2013

In this study, the target ground was selected for the assessment of liquefaction, for which energy-based Arias intensity liquefaction assessment method was applied, The results of evaluation by simplified method using conventional in-situ test were compared. The result of the assessment of liquefaction revealed that the safety factor of the Arias Intensity using the actual records of the Hachinohe and Ofunato earthquake showed generally similar trends with the simplified method, However, the Arias Intensity factor of safety for the artificial earthquake created from the design response spectrum showed some difference from the factors of safety of the simplified method. The shear stress ratio and the occurrence strength of the Arias Intensity are differently calculated between stress and energy, but the resistance stress ratio of the simplified method and the resistance strength of the Arias Intensity use the empirical chart of the results of the standard penetration test for the actual liquefaction areas by the earthquake, which seems the reason for the similar results between Arias Intensity assessment and stress concept simplified method for Hachinohe and Ofunato earthquakes. Therefore, it was found that the energy-based Arias Intensity liquefaction assessment could represent the dynamic changes of the ground caused by seismic characteristics such as acceleration, magnitude, duration and amplitude.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2009.09a
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• pp.1188-1191
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• 2009

In this study, cyclic triaxial tests were performed with the samples which were anisotropically consolidated using irregular earthquake loading to consider in-situ condition and seismic wave. The consolidation pressure ratio(K) was changed from 0.5 to 1.0. The Ofunato and Hachinohe wave are applied as irregular earthquake loading and liquefaction resistance strength was estimated from excess pore water pressure(EPWP) ratio. As results of the cyclic triaxial tests, buildup of EPWP ratio increased as K value increased. It shows, that the isotropically consolidated sands is more susceptible to liquefaction than anisotropically consolidated sands under equal conditions such as confining pressure and dynamic loading.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.155-165
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• 1999

In completely weathered granite gneiss,8 of 40cm cast-in-situ concrete piles are constructed, and static pile load tests are executed on the piles to study the bearing behavior of rock-socketed piles. Subsurface explorations are carried out on the test site in three phases, in which 14 borehole investigations as well as the seismic investigation are performed. Rock socketd depths of the piles in the weathered rocks are varied as 3m, 6m and 9m to separate the shaft resistance from the end bearing resistance, and for a couple of piles, styrofoam of 10cm thickness is installed under the pile point to eliminate the effect of the end resistance. Strain gages are instrumented on re-bars to pick-up the transferred loads along the pile length. From the results of the pile load tests, the allowable shaft resistance and the allowable end bearing values of weathered rocks are proposed as $8.6t/m^2\;and\; 84t/m^2$, respectively. The empirical equation relating the elastic modulus of rock mass with the uniaxial compressive strength of the rock specimen is also proposed for the weathered rocks.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.2C
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• pp.125-131
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• 2008

Ground stiffness(shear wave velocity) is one of the key parameters in geotechnical earthquake engineering. An In-situ seismic technique has its own advantages and disadvantages over the others in stiffness measurements. By combining the crosshole and seismic cone techniques and utilizing favourable features of bender elements, a new hybrid probe has been developed in order to enhance data quality and easiness of testing. The basic structure of the probe, called "MudFork" is a fork composed of two blades, on each of which source and receiver bender elements were mounted respectively. To evaluate the disturbance caused by the penetration of the probe, shear wave velocity measurements were carried out in the Kaolinite slurry in the laboratory. Finally, the probe was penetrated in coastal mud near Incheon, Korea, using SPT(standard penetration test)rods pushed with a routine boring machine and shear wave velocity measurements were carried out. The results were verified with data from laboratory and cone testing. The performance of the probe turns out to be excellent in terms of data quality and testing convenience.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.11 no.1 s.53
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• pp.45-57
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• 2007

The mean shear wave velocity to the depth of 30 m (Vs30) derived from the western Vs is the current site classification criterion for determining the design seismic ground motion taking into account the site amplification potential. In order to evaluate the Vs30 at a site, a shear wave velocity (Vs) Profile extending to at least 30 m in depth must be acquired from in-situ seismic test. In many cases, however, the resultant depth of the Vs profile may not extend to 30 m, owing to the unfavorable field condition and the limitation of adopted testing techniques. In this study, the Vs30 and the mean shear wave velocity to a depth shallower, than 30 m (VsDs) were computed from the Vs profiles more than 30 m in depth obtained by performing various seismic tests at total 72 sites in Korea, and a correlation between Vs30 and VsDs was drawn based on the computed mean Vs data. In addition, a method for extrapolating the Vs profile from shallow depth to 30 m was developed by building a shape curve based on the average data of all Vs profiles. For evaluating the Vs30 from the shallow Vs profiles, both the methods using VsDs and shape curve result in less bias than the simplest method of extending the lowermost Vs equally to 30 m in depth, and are usefully applicable particularly in the cases of the Vs profiles extending to at least 10 m in depth.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2008.03a
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• pp.587-598
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• 2008

In the trackbed design using elastic multi-layer model, the stress-dependent resilient modulus is an important input parameter, which reflects substructure performance under repeated traffic loading. The resilient moduli of crushed stone and weathered granite soil were developed using nonlinear dynamic stiffness, which can be measured by in-situ and laboratory seismic tests. The prediction models of resilient modulus varying with the deviatoric or bulk stress were proposed (Park et al., 2008). To investigate the performance of the prediction models proposed herein, the elastic response of the test trackbed near PyeongTaek, Korea was evaluated using a 3-D nonlinear elastic computer program (GEOTRACK) and compared with measured elastic vertical displacement during the passages of freight and passenger trains. The material types of the test sub-ballasts are crushed stone and weathered granite soil, respectively. The calculated vertical displacements within the sub-ballasts are within the order of 1mm, and agree well with measured values with the reasonable margin. The prediction models are thus concluded to work properly in the preliminary investigation. The prediction models proposed for resilient modulus were verified by the comparison of the calculated vertical displacements with measured ones during train passages.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.1712-1723
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• 2008

In the trackbed design using an elastic multi-layer model, the stress-dependent resilient modulus is the key input parameter, which reflects substructure performance under repeated traffic loading. The prediction models of resilient modulus of crushed stone and weathered granite soil were developed from nonlinear dynamic stiffness, which can be combined by in-situ and laboratory seismic measurements. The models accommodate the variation with the deviatoric and/or bulk stresses. To investigate the performance of the prediction models proposed, the elastic response of the test trackbed near PyeongTaek, Korea was evaluated using a 3-D nonlinear elastic computer program (GEOTRACK) and compared with measured elastic vertical displacement caused by the passages of freight and passenger trains. The material types of the test sub-ballasts are crushed stone and weathered granite soil, respectively. The calculated vertical displacements within the sub-ballasts are within the order of 1mm, and agree well with measured values with the reasonable margin. The prediction models are thus concluded to work properly in the preliminary investigation.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.215-223
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• 2005

Piezo-ceramics are special materials which transform energy from mechanical to electrical forms and vice versa. Bender elements are composite materials consisting of thin piezo-ceramics and elastic shims, and are widely used as actuators and transducers in the field of electronics, robotics, autos and mechatronics utilizing the effectiveness of energy transformation capability. In geotechnical engineering, commercial bender elements are used in laboratory as source and receiver in the measurements of soil stiffness. The elements were built by using various metal shims sandwiched between piezo-ceramics and coating over the composite in the research. A pair of elements were buried in a concrete block and used as source and receiver to measure the stiffness of the concrete. The test results were verified by comparing with the resonant column testing results. In a preliminary stage of the development of an in-situ seismic testing equipment using bender elements for soft clay materials, shear waves were generated and measured by burying the elements in the barrel of kaolinite and water mixture. The measured shear wave signals were so distinct for the first-arrival pick that applicability of the elements in the field measurements could be very promising.