• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.277-286
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• 2009

A suitability of a thixotropic grout developed in this study has been examined through laboratory tests on strength, segregation, and viscosity. The thixotropic grout is a mixture of two types of liquid components. The A-liquid component consists of cement, water, and MG-A and the B-liquid component consists of scarlet, water, and MG-B. Unconfined compressive strength of specimens prepared with a prefer mix-proportion satisfied a design criteria for the backfilling of tail voids. A material segregation phenomenon under water condition was not observed in the thixotropic grout whereas it was observed in the existing silica-type grout. In addition, viscosity tests have been rallied out on the thixotropic grout to verify the capability of a long-distance delivery in the field. Both the A-liquid component and the B-liquid component maintained a viscosity of below 2,000 cP for 120 minutes. This experimental result confirms that two liquid components guarantees a long-distance delivery in tile field application.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2008.03a
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• pp.725-733
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• 2008

A thixotropic grout has been developed for the use of filling a tail void in the shield TBM and as well as various ground voids. The grout developed in this study is a mixture of inorganic substance, cement and some functional additives. Its engineering characteristics was investigated by measuring a viscosity and unconfined compressive strengths. The optimum mix proportion for an effective thixotropic grout was proposed through several repeated laboratory tests. The various physical properties such as thixotropy, unconfined compressive strengths, and durability of the thixotropic grout and the gels produced from the grout were compared with those of the well-known waterglass-type grout such as L.W.. The thixotropic grout developed in the study exhibited an excellent performance for back-filling of tail voids in the shield TBM based on experimental results compared to the existing waterglass grout.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2005.03a
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• pp.1283-1290
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• 2005

A thixotropic grout has been newly developed for the use of back-filling a tail void in the shield tunnel and filling up ground voids. The grout developed in the study is a mixture of colloidal silica, cement and some functional additives. Its engineering characteristics was investigated by measuring a viscosity and unconfined compressive strengths. The optimum mixing proportion for an effective thixotropic grout was proposed through several repeated laboratory tests. The various physical properties such as thixotropy, unconfined compressive strengths, and durability of the thixotropic grout and the gels produced from the grout were compared with those of the well-known waterglass grout such as L.W.. The thixotropic grout developed in the study exhibited an excellent performance for back-filling of tail voids, based on experimental results compared to the existing waterglass grout.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.75-85
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• 2010

The focus of this study is to evaluate the field applicability of the newly developed inorganic thixotropic-grout in various ways. In order to do this, the volume stability and the permeability of the inorganic thixotropic-grout have been measured and compared to the existing silica type grouts. In addition, the filling capability of the grout into the tail void has been evaluated through both an experiment with a miniature tail-void filling equipment and a test filling at the shield TBM construction site. The volume loss of the inorganic thixotropic-grout after a 14 day-curing under the atmosphere condition was appeared to be minimal. The excellent waterproofing ability of the inorganic thixotropic-grout was confirmed through a permeability test. The toxicity of the inorganic thixotropic-grout has been evaluated through a toxicity test of aquatic fishes (KS M 0111) and the pH value of the liquid eluviated from inorganic thixotropic-grout was measured as an average of 8.0 and a fatality rate of goldfish after 96 hours was 10% or so. The existence of harmful heavy metals in the liquid eluviated from the inorganic thixotropic-grout has been also examined through an atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) test. Any of harmful heavy metals were not detected and the detected level of $Cr^{6+}$ and Cd was far below the standard. Based on both an experiment with a miniature tail-void filling equipment and a test filling at the shield TBM construction site, the filling ability of inorganic thixotropic-grout into the tail void was proved to be excellent.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.263-278
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• 2022

This paper contains experimental study for the development and performance of TBM backfill material with thixotropic properties. The LW backfill material is widely applied to fill the cavity on the back side of the shield TBM excavation, but has disadvantages such as settlement caused by strength reduction, material separation by groundwater, and reduced plasticity. In this paper, laboratory tests and a model test were conducted to assess the performance of inorganic thixotropic backfill material proposed to improve these problems. The results of laboratory tests show that 1 hr-uniaxial compressive strength of ITB was 12 times higher than LW, and the rate of bleeding of 20 hr was 8.3 times lower, and the result of flow table test was more than 27 times higher. This result indicated that the inorganic thixotropic backfill material has superior properties to LW backfill in terms of strength reduction, material separation, and thixotropy. In the model experiment, a model injection device tester was manufactured and the injection performance and filling rate were verified. When material was injected in the water, it was visually checked whether material separation occurred, and it was confirmed that the filling rate was 96% or more. Comparison results with the test of LW and ITB materials was concluded that ITB can reduce the material separation by groundwater and the occurrence of tunnel cavity.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.71-83
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• 2009

Shotcrete is an important primary support for tunnelling in rock. The quality control of shotcrete is a core issue in the safe construction and maintenance of tunnels. Although shotcrete may be applied well initially onto excavated rock surfaces, it is affected by blasting, rock deformation and shrinkage and can debond from the excavated surface, causing problems such as corrosion, buckling, fracturing and the creation of internal voids. This study suggests an effective non-destructive evaluation method of the tunnel shotcrete bonding state applied onto hard rocks using the impact-echo (IE) method and ground penetration radar (GPR). To verify previous numerical simulation results, experimental study carried out. Generally, the bonding state of shotcrete can be classified into void, debonded, and fully bonded. In the laboratory, three different bonding conditions were modeled. The signals obtained from the experimental IE tests were analyzed at the time domain, frequency domain, and time-frequency domain (i.e., the Short- Time Fourier transform). For all cases in the analyses, the experimental test results were in good agreement with the previous numerical simulation results, verifying this approach. Both the numerical and experimental results suggest that the bonding state of shotcrete can be evaluated through changes in the resonance frequency and geometric damping ratio in a frequency domain analysis, and through changes in the contour shape and correlation coefficient in a time-frequency analysis: as the bonding state worsens in hard rock condition, the autospectral density increases, the geometric damping ratio decreases, and the contour shape in the time-frequency domain has a long tail parallel to the time axis. The correlation coefficient can be effectively applied for a quantitative evaluation of bonding state of tunnel shotcrete. Finally, the bonding state of shotcrete can be successfully evaluated based on the process suggested in this study.