• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.305-318
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• 2020

Stone columns are widely used to treat soft clay ground. Optimizing the design of stone columns based on cost-effectiveness is always an attractive subject in the practice of ground treatment. In this paper, the design of stone columns is optimized using the concept of robust geotechnical design. Standard deviation of failure probability, which is a system response of concern of the stone column-reinforced foundation, is used as a measure of the design robustness due to the uncertainty in the coefficient of variation (COV) of the noise factors in practice. The failure probability of a stone column-reinforced foundation can be readily determined using Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) based on the settlements of the stone column-reinforced foundation, which are evaluated by a deterministic method. A framework based on the concept of robust geotechnical design is proposed for determining the most preferred design of stone columns considering multiple objectives including safety, cost and design robustness. This framework is illustrated with an example, a stone column-reinforced foundation under embankment loading. Based on the outcome of this study, the most preferred design of stone columns is obtained.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.81 no.1
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• pp.93-102
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• 2022

The optimum design of reinforced concrete cantilever retaining walls subjected to seismic loads is an extremely important challenge in structural and geotechnical engineering, especially in seismic zones. This study proposes an adaptive sperm swarm optimization algorithm (ASSO) for economic design of retaining structure under static and seismic loading. The proposed ASSO algorithm utilizes a time-varying velocity damping factor to provide a fine balance between the explorative and exploitative behavior of the original method. In addition, the new method considers a reasonable velocity limitation to avoid the divergence of the sperm movement. The proposed algorithm is benchmarked with a set of test functions and the results are compared with the standard sperm swarm optimization (SSO) and some other robust metaheuristic from the literature. For seismic optimization of retaining structures, Mononobe-Okabe method is employed for dynamic loading conditions and total construction cost of the structure is considered as the single objective function. The optimization constraints include both geotechnical and structural restrictions and the design variables are the geometrical dimensions of the wall and the amount of steel reinforcement. Finally, optimization of two benchmark retaining structures under static and seismic loads using the ASSO algorithm is presented. According to the numerical results, the ASSO may provide better optimal solutions, and the designs obtained by ASSO have a lower cost by up to 20% compared with some other methods from the literature.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.142-155
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• 2018

The ${\bigcirc}{\bigcirc}$ mine has irregularly developed stratum around the ore body. The purpose of this study is to array irregular stratum thickness systematically for effective roof bolting and to implement a supporting system corresponding to it. The number of 81 cases combined with stratum thicknesses was limited to 9 cases by robust design. For each case, the load height which can act as a roof load was determined by the characteristics of stratum and RMR. The load range due to the load height is calculated assuming block shaped and arch shape. The support load of the roof bolt was considered as the average load of the two methods. Numerical analysis results of the support design showed that the cable bolt was more effective for the roof supporting fully grouted than the anchoring type. As a result of the construction, it was possible to control the roof, but all of the roof was gradually sinking downward due to the deformation of the side wall of the mine tunnel.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.397-404
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• 2022

Accurate prediction of the undrained shaft resistance is essential for robust design of bored piles in undrained condition. The undrained shaft resistance is calculated using the undrained adhesion factor multiplied by the undrained cohesion of the soil. However, the available correlations to predict the undrained adhesion factor have been developed using simple regression techniques and the accuracy of these correlations has not been thoroughly assessed in previous studies. The lack of the assessment of these correlations made it difficult for geotechnical engineers to select the most accurate correlation in routine designs. Furthermore, limited attempts have been made in previous studies to use advanced data mining techniques to develop simple and accurate correlation to predict the undrained adhesion factor. This research, therefore, has been conducted to fill these gaps in knowledge by developing novel and robust correlation to predict the undrained adhesion factor. The development of the new correlation has been conducted using the multi-objective evolutionary polynomial regression analysis. The new correlation outperformed the available empirical correlations, where the new correlation scored lower mean absolute error, mean square error, root mean square error and standard deviation of measured to predicted adhesion factor, and higher mean, a20-index and coefficient of correlation. The correlation also successfully showed the influence of the undrained cohesion and the effective stress on the adhesion factor. Hence, the new correlation enhances the design accuracy and can be used by practitioner geotechnical engineers to ensure optimized designs of bored piles in undrained conditions.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.1207-1217
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• 2018

Geomechanics parameters are critical to numerical simulation, stability analysis, design and construction of geotechnical engineering. Due to the limitations of laboratory and in situ experiments, back analysis is widely used in geomechancis and geotechnical engineering. In this study, a hybrid back analysis method, that coupling numerical simulation, response surface (RS) and relevance vector machine (RVM), was proposed and applied to identify geomechanics parameters from hydraulic fracturing. RVM was adapted to approximate complex functional relationships between geomechanics parameters and borehole pressure through coupling with response surface method and numerical method. Artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm was used to search the geomechanics parameters as optimal method in back analysis. The proposed method was verified by a numerical example. Based on the geomechanics parameters identified by hybrid back analysis, the computed borehole pressure agreed closely with the monitored borehole pressure. It showed that RVM presented well the relationship between geomechanics parameters and borehole pressure, and the proposed method can characterized the geomechanics parameters reasonably. Further, the parameters of hybrid back analysis were analyzed and discussed. It showed that the hybrid back analysis is feasible, effective, robust and has a good global searching performance. The proposed method provides a significant way to identify geomechanics parameters from hydraulic fracturing.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.11-26
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• 2022

One of the most important issues in tunneling, is the squeezing phenomenon. Squeezing can occur during excavation or after the construction of tunnels, which in both cases could lead to significant damages. Therefore, it is important to predict the squeezing and consider it in the early design stage of tunnel construction. Different empirical, semi-empirical and theoretical-analytical methods have been presented to determine the squeezing. Therefore, it is necessary to examine the ability of each of these methods and identify the best method among them. In this study, squeezing in a part of the Alborz service tunnel in Iran was estimated through a number of empirical, semi- empirical and theoretical-analytical methods. Among these methods, the most robust model was used to obtain a database including 300 data for training and 33 data for testing in order to develop a machine learning (ML) method. To this end, three ML models of Gaussian process regression (GPR), artificial neural network (ANN) and support vector regression (SVR) were trained and tested to propose a robust model to predict the squeezing phenomenon. A comparative analysis between the conventional and the ML methods utilized in this study showed that, the GPR model is the most robust model in the prediction of squeezing phenomenon. The sensitivity analysis of the input parameters using the mutual information test (MIT) method showed that, the most sensitive parameter on the squeezing phenomenon is the tangential strain (ε_θ^α) parameter with a sensitivity score of 2.18. Finally, the GPR model was recommended to predict the squeezing phenomenon in tunneling projects. This work's significance is that it can provide a good estimation of the squeezing phenomenon in tunneling projects, based on which geotechnical engineers can take the necessary actions to deal with it in the pre-construction designs.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.621-642
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• 2011

Passive tuned mass dampers (TMDs) efficiently suppress vibrations induced by quasi-stationary dynamic inputs, such as winds, sea waves or traffic loads, but may prove of little use against pulse-like excitations, such as near-field (NF) ground motions. The extent of such impairment is however controversial, partly due to the different evaluation criteria adopted within the literature, partly to the limited number of seismic records used in most investigations. In this study, three classical techniques and two new variants for designing a TMD on an SDOF structure are tested under 338 NF records from the PEER NGA database, including 156 records with forward-directivity features. Percentile response reduction spectra are introduced to statistically assess TMD performance, and TMD robustness is verified through Monte Carlo simulations. The methodology is extended to a variety of MDOF bending-type and shear-type frames, and simulated on a case study building structure recently constructed in Central Italy.Results offer an interesting insight into the performance of TMDs against NF earthquakes, ultimately showing that, if properly designed and sufficiently massive, TMDs are effective and robust even in the face of pulse-like ground motions. The two newly proposed design techniques are shown to generally outperform the classical ones.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2010.09c
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• pp.72-77
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• 2010

The Incheon Bridge, which was opened to the traffic in October 2009, is an 18.4 km long sea-crossing bridge connecting the Incheon International Airport with the expressway networks around the Seoul metropolitan area by way of Songdo District of Incheon City. This bridge is an integration of several special featured bridges and the major part of the bridge consists of cable-stayed spans. This marine cable-stayed bridge has a main span of 800 m wide to cross the vessel navigation channel in and out of the Incheon Port. In waterways where ship collision is anticipated, bridges shall be designed to resist ship impact forces, and/or, adequately protected by ship impact protection (SIP) systems. For the Incheon Bridge, large diameter circular dolphins as SIP were made at 44 locations of the both side of the main span around the piers of the cable-stayed bridge span. This world's largest dolphin-type SIP system protects the bridge against the collision with 100,000 DWT tanker navigating the channel with speed of 10 knots. Diameter of the dolphin is up to 25 m. Vessel collision risk was assessed by probability based analysis with AASHTO Method-II. The annual frequency of bridge collapse through the risk analysis for 71,370 cases of the impact scenario was less than $0.5{\times}10^{-4}$ and satisfies design requirements. The dolphin is the circular sheet pile structure filled with crushed rock and closed at the top with a robust concrete cap. The structural design was performed with numerical analyses of which constitutional model was verified by the physical model experiment using the geo-centrifugal testing equipment. 3D non-linear finite element models were used to analyze the structural response and energy-dissipating capability of dolphins which were deeply embedded in the seabed. The dolphin structure secures external stability and internal stability for ordinary loads such as wave and current pressure. Considering failure mechanism, stability assessment was performed for the strength limit state and service limit state of the dolphins. The friction angle of the crushed stone as a filling material was reduced to $38^{\circ}$ considering the possibility of contracting behavior as the impact.