• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2006.03a
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• pp.1312-1319
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• 2006

This thesis studied the scale effects on bearing capacity and settlement characteristics by using FEM. The conclusions of the study are as follows. 1) For sandy soil, the bearing capacity ratio increased in the form of logarithm as the foundation width increased. Hence application of static mechanic theory results in overestimation of the bearing capacity when the bearing capacity should be derived from plate loading test results. 2) In clayey soil, the characteristics of the bearing capacity associated with foundation width met Terzaghi's bearing capacity theory. 3) In sandy soil, the settlement ratio increased non-linearly as foundation width increased. However, in clayey soil, the settlement ratio increased linearly. 4) In ordinary soil, the foundation width - settlement ratio turned out to be close to that of sandy soil.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.385-400
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• 2016

Bearing capacity of open-ended piles depends largely on inner frictional resistance, which is influenced by the degree of soil plugging. While a fully-plugged open-ended pile produces a bearing capacity similar to a closed-ended pile, fully coring (or unplugged) pile produces a much smaller bearing capacity. In general, open-ended piles are driven under partially-plugged mode. The formation of soil plug may depend on many factors, including wall thickness at the pile tip (or inner pile diameter), sleeve height of the thickened wall at the pile tip and relative density. In this paper, we studied the effects of wall thickness at the pile base and sleeve height of the thickened wall at the pile tip on bearing capacity using laboratory model tests. The tests were conducted on a medium dense sandy ground. The model piles with different tip thicknesses and sleeve heights of thickened wall at the pile tip were tested. The results were also discussed using the incremental filling ratio and plug length ratio, which are generally used to describe the degree of soil plugging. The results showed that the bearing capacity increases with tip thickness. The bearing capacity of piles of smaller sleeve length (e.g., ${\leq}1D$; D is pile outer diameter) was found to be dependent on the sleeve length, while it is independent on the sleeve length of greater than a 1D length. We also found that the soil plug height is dependent on wall thickness at the pile base. The results on the incremental filling ratio revealed that the thinner walled piles produce higher degree of soil plugging at greater penetration depths. The results also revealed that the soil plug height is dependent on sleeve length of up to 2D length and independent beyond a 2D length. The piles of a smaller sleeve length (e.g., ${\leq}1D$) produce higher degree of soil plugging at shallow penetration depths while the piles of a larger sleeve length (e.g., ${\geq}2D$) produce higher degree of soil plugging at greater penetration depths.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.315-328
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• 2019

This paper presents an investigation on bearing capacity, load-settlement behavior and safety factor of rock-soil slopes reinforced using geogrid-box method (GBM). To this end, small-scale laboratory studies were carried out to study the load-settlement response of a circular footing resting on unreinforced and reinforced rock-soil slopes. Several parameters including unit weight of rock-soil materials (loose- and dense-packing modes), slope height, location of footing relative to the slope crest, and geogrid tensile strength were studied. A series of finite element analysis were conducted using ABAQUS software to predict the bearing capacity behavior of slopes. Limit equilibrium and finite element analysis were also performed using commercially available software SLIDE and ABAQUS, respectively to calculate the safety factor. It was found that stabilization of rock-soil slopes using GBM significantly improves the bearing capacity and settlement behavior of slopes. It was established that, the displacement contours in the dense-packing mode distribute in a broader and deeper area as compared with the loose-packing mode, which results in higher ultimate bearing load. Moreover, it was found that in the loose-packing mode an increase in the vertical pressure load is accompanied with an increase in the soil settlement, while in the dense-packing mode the load-settlement curves show a pronounced peak. Comparison of bearing capacity ratios for the dense- and loose-packing modes demonstrated that the maximum benefit of GBM is achieved for rock-soil slopes in loose-packing mode. It was also found that by increasing the slope height, both the initial stiffness and the bearing load decreases. The results indicated a significant increase in the ultimate bearing load as the distance of the footing to the slope crest increases. For all the cases, a good agreement between the laboratory and numerical results was observed.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.41-54
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• 2023

The use of a skirt, a vertical projection attached to the footing, is a recently developed method to increase the bearing capacity of soils and reduce foundation settlements. Most of the studies were focused on vertical skirted circular footings resting on clay while neglecting the rigidity and inclination of skirts. This study employs finite element limit analysis to investigate the bearing capacity enhancement of flexible and rigid inclined skirts in cohesionless soils. The results indicate that the bearing capacity initially improves with an increase in the skirt inclination but subsequently decreases for both flexible and rigid skirts. However, the rigid skirt exhibits more apparent optimum skirt inclination and bearing capacity enhancement than the flexible one, owing to differences in their failure mechanisms. Furthermore, the bearing capacity of the inclined skirted foundation increases with the skirt length, footing depth, and internal friction angle of the soil. In the case of rigid skirts, the bearing capacity increases linearly with skirt length, while for flexible skirts, it reaches a stable value at a certain skirt length. The efficiency of the flexible footing reduces as the footing depth and soil internal friction angle increase. Conversely, the efficiency of the rigid skirt decreases only with an increase in the depth of the footing. The paper also presents a detailed analysis of various failure patterns, highlighting the behaviour of inclined skirted footings. Additionally, nonlinear regression equations are provided to quantify and predict the bearing capacity enhancement with the inclined skirts.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.33-45
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• 2014

Use of geotextile as reinforcement material to improve the weak soil is a popular method these days. Tensile strength of geotextile and the soil-geotextile interaction are the major factors which influence the improvement of the soil. Change in fine content within the sand can change the interface behavior between soil and geotextile. In the present paper, the bearing capacity of unreinforced and geotextile-reinforced sand with different percentages of fines has been studied. A series of model tests have been carried out and the load settlement curves are obtained. The ultimate load carrying capacity of unreinforced and reinforced sand with different percentages of fines is compared. The interface behavior of sand and geotextile with various percentages of fines is also studied. It is observed that sand having around 5% of fine is suitable or permissible for bearing capacity improvement due to the application of geosynthetic reinforcement. The effectiveness of the reinforcement in load carrying capacity improvement decreases due to the addition of excessive amount of fines.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.382-389
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• 2002

Recently, auger-drilled piling has been widely used in urban area to reduce the air pollution and noise. But this construction method that its basic theory was introduced from Japan may be changed depending on the each piling company and construction field condition. Therefore, the design code and management method for auger-drilled piling is not defined yet. Especially, the lack of research on the bearing capacity of auger-drilled piling leads to the absence of rational bearing capacity prediction equation. This paper presents the optimum design code and economical construction method of the auger-drilled piling by proposing the new bearing capacity prediction equation based on the site specific soil types and construction conditions. In this paper, existing bearing capacity prediction equations and current pile load tests were compared. And the end bearing capacity and skin friction characteristics were also analyzed by comparing the results of CAPWAP. From the results of analysis, a reliable bearing capacity prediction equation considered soil types is proposed.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.1193-1205
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• 2018

A footing located on slopes possess relatively lower bearing capacity as compared to the footing located on the level ground. The bearing capacity further reduces under seismic loading. The adverse effect of slope inclination and seismic loading on bearing capacity can be minimized by proving sufficient setback distance. Though few earlier studies considered setback distance in their analysis, the range of considered setback distance was very narrow. No study has explored the critical setback distance. An attempt has been made in the present study to comprehensively investigate the effect of setback distance on footing under seismic loading conditions. The pseudo-static method has been incorporated to study the influence of seismic loading. The rate of decrease in seismic bearing capacity with slope inclination become more evident with the increase in embedment depth of footing and angle of shearing resistance of soil. The increase in bearing capacity with setback distance relative to level ground reduces with slope inclination, soil density, embedment depth of footing and seismic acceleration. The critical value of setback distance is found to increase with slope inclination, embedment depth of footing and density of soil. The critical setback distance in seismic case is found to be more than those observed in the static case. The failure mechanisms of footing under seismic loading is presented in detail. The statistical analysis was also performed to develop three equations to predict the critical setback distance, seismic bearing capacity factor ($N_{{\gamma}qs}$) and change in seismic bearing capacity (BCR) with slope geometry, footing depth and seismic loading.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2009.03a
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• pp.782-791
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• 2009

This study was carried out the laboratory tests and field plate load test in order to evaluate the reinforcement effect of geocell for road construction. The geocell-reinforced subgrade shows the increment of cohesion and friction angle with comprison of non-reinforced subgrade. In addition, the field plate load test was performed on the geocell-reinforced subgrade to estimate the bearing capacity of soil. The direct shear test was conducted with utilizing a large-scale shear box to evaluate the internal soil friction angle with geocell reinforcement. The number of cells in the geocell system is varied to investigate the effect of soil reinforcement. The theoretical bearing capacity of subgrade soil with and without geocell reinforcement was estimated by using the soil internal friction angle. The field plate load tests were also conducted to estimate the bearing capacity with geocell reinforcement. It is found out that the bearing capacity of geocell-reinforced subgrade gives 2 times higher value than that of unreinforced subgrade soil. In the future, the reinforcement effect of the geocell rigidity and load-balancing effect of the geocells should be evaluated.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2005.03a
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• pp.41-48
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• 2005

A small scale impact apparatus, pressuremter and soil chamber were used to investigate horizontal behavior and bearing capacity of the steel guardrail post installed in compacted soil. A useful test and data reduction method for pressuremter was developed to evaluate soil parameters of surrounding soil and stability of the post. From the analyses of the PMT, horizontal bearing capacity of the post impacted by a boggie was 12.7% bigger than that of the post with static loading. The increased horizontal bearing capacity is due to generated inertia force that is dependent on the shape of failed soil wedge around the post. P-y curves were obtained from the pressuremeter test and were applied to a finite difference program which predicted a load-deflection and a bending moment contours along the post.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.295-300
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• 2002

In this research problems of recent design methods and their improvement for SIP in domestic areas were studied by using the characteristics of load-settlement curves and bearing capacity from field loading tests. Elastic and plastic settlement for total settlement in each loading step conducted domestic areas had a tendency. From these tendency and bearing capacity determined by loading tests we can ascertain that empirical chart can be assistant tool in SIP design. It showes that SIP design using N-value in domestic area with soil condition of grarute type results in very conservative bearing capacity, to be opposed in soil with unprofitable geological condition the design can be insecure. Also, we can ascertain that Meyerhof's bearing capacity used modified N-value on tip part of pile is more applicable than recent design method where tip bearing capacity is 20NAp N-value limited to 50. These results show that modified design method can he more economic than before because of using pile's bearing capacity to tolerable load of pile material.