• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.168-177
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• 2008

Trafficablility of a miner and potential environmental impacts due to mining activities should be considered in the selection of a commercial manganese nodule mining site. These two factors can be evaluated comparatively with physical properties and shear strength of sea-bed sediments. For the qualitative comparison of potential minig sites in terms of these two factors, physical properties such as water contents, void ratios, porosities, and grain densities, and shear strengths of surface sediments were determined for the three potential manganese nodule mining sites(KR1, KR2, and KR5) in the Korean manganese nodule contract area, northeast Pacific. For the study, sediment samples were collected from 107 stations from 2004 to 2006. The physical properties of surface sediments showed more significant differences between northern(KR1, KR2) and southern(KR5) blocks than between northern blocks(KR1 vs. KR2). Water content, void ratio, and porosity of sediments from KR5 were relatively higher than those from KR1 and KR2. Grain density of sediments from KR5 was relatively lower than those from KR1 and KR2. Shear strengths of the top 10cm sediments were higher in KR1 and KR2, whereas those of the deeper part were highest in KR5 block. Generally, sediments of high water contents are less suspendible than those of the low water contents by benthic disturbances, thus less disturbance is expected in the sediments of high water content by mining activities. In terms of trafficability, the shear strength of sediment below 10 cm deep is more important than shallower part because miner will disturb at least top 10 cm interval of the surface sediments. Base on these results, we conclude that KR5 area will be the best site for commercial mining among three investigated sites in this study.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.40-47
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• 2018

Porous walkway blocks are constructed for the purpose already, but reserved water is easily consumed due to the bigger permeability than necessary. Furthermore, porous structure reduces the strength of blocks, which resulting cracking and settlements in walkways. In this study, we suggested a solution for given problems by determination for the location of minimum principal stress in walkway blocks against moving foot loads in order to design and verifying the determined location of minimum principal stress. An optimum design with a verification example for determined location of minimum principal stress have been presented in a two dimensional Block member on elastic foundation for pedestrian walkway for reserving water inside. The minimum value for sum of shear forces is found when ${\times}1$ is 58.58 mm(30% of total span, 200mm), while the minimum deformation is located at ${\times}2=80mm$(70% of total span, 200 mm). In a modified model, When moving boundary condition(walkway foot loads) is located at ${\times}1$(=0 mm), the location of minimum principal stresses is found at 168 mm( 84% of span, 200 mm), in which the stress concentration due to the foot load is modeled as two layers of distributed loads(reactions of foundation modeled as springs). Consequently, zero deformed reservoirs for rainwater on the neutral axis (${\times}2=167mm$) has been determined in the modified model with three dimensional FEM analysis verifications.