• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.221-228
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• 2002

The stability of a tunnel face is one of the most important factors in tunnel excavation. Especially, if a tunnel is located under groundwater level, groundwater may flow into the tunnel face and seepage forces acting on the tunnel face due to groundwater flow may affect seriously the stability of the tunnel face. Therefore, the seepage pressure at the tunnel face should be considered fir the proper design and safe construction of a tunnel. In this paper, the effect of tunnel advance rate on the seepage forces acting on the tunnel face was studied. The finite element program to analyze the groundwater flow around a tunnel with the consideration of tunnel advance rate was developed. Using the program, the parametric study for the effect of the tunnel advance rate and hydraulic characteristics of the ground on the seepage forces acting on the tunnel face was made. From this study, it was concluded that the tunnel advance rate must betaken into consideration as an additional parameter to assess the seepage forces at the tunnel face and a rational design methodology fer the assessment of support pressures required for maintaining the stability of the tunnel face was suggested for undetwater tunnels.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2003.03a
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• pp.273-280
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• 2003

Tunneling in difficult geological conditions is often inevitable especially in urban areas. Ground improvement and reinforcement techniques are often required to guarantee safe tunnel excavations and/or to prevent damage to adjacent structures. The steel pipe-reinforced multi-step grouting method has been recently applied to tunnel sites in Korea as an auxiliary technique. In this study, the face stability with steel pipe-reinforced multi-step grouting was evaluated by simultaneously considering two factors: one is the effective stress acting on the tunnel face calculated by limit theorem and limit equilibrium method; the other is the seepage force obtained by means of numerical analysis. The study revealed that the influence of the steel pipe-reinforced multi-step grouting on the support pressure in dry condition is not significant while there is relatively a large amount of reduction in seepage forces by adopting the technique in saturated condition. The effect of the anisotropy of permeability on the seepage force acting on the tunnel face was also estimated by conducting the coupled analysis. It was found that a higher horizontal permeability compared with the vertical one causes reduction in the seepage force acting on the tunnel face.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.38 no.5
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• pp.507-515
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• 2024

An accurate estimation of the geotechnical parameters in front of tunnel faces is crucial for the safe construction of underground infrastructure using tunnel boring machines (TBMs). This study was aimed at developing a data-driven model for predicting the rock quality designation (RQD) of the ground formation ahead of tunnel faces. The dataset used for the machine learning (ML) model comprises seven geological and mechanical features and 564 RQD values, obtained from an earth pressure balance (EPB) shield TBM tunneling project beneath the Han River in the Republic of Korea. Four ML algorithms were employed in developing the RQD prediction model: k-nearest neighbor (KNN), support vector regression (SVR), random forest (RF), and extreme gradient boosting (XGB). The grid search and five-fold cross-validation techniques were applied to optimize the prediction performance of the developed model by identifying the optimal hyperparameter combinations. The prediction results revealed that the RF algorithm-based model exhibited superior performance, achieving a root mean square error of 7.38% and coefficient of determination of 0.81. In addition, the Shapley additive explanations (SHAP) approach was adopted to determine the most relevant features, thereby enhancing the interpretability and reliability of the developed model with the RF algorithm. It was concluded that the developed model can successfully predict the RQD of the ground formation ahead of tunnel faces, contributing to safe and efficient tunnel excavation.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.185-196
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• 2020

A method to reduce the wind pressure at the leading edge of a noise barrier was investigated by gradually lowering the height of a member added to the end of the noise barrier. The shape of the lowered height of the added member was defined by its length and slope, and the optimal variable was determined in wind tunnel testing via the boundary-layer wind profile. The goal of the optimal shape was to reduce the wind pressure at the leading edge of the noise barrier to the level suggested in the Eurocode and to maintain the base-bending moment of the added member at the same level as the noise-barrier section. Using parametric wind tunnel investigation, an added member with a slope of 1:2 that protruded 1.2 times the height of the noise barrier was proposed. This added member is expected to simplify, or at least minimize, the types of column members required to equidistantly support both added members and noise barriers, which should thereby improve the safety and construction convenience of noise-barrier structures.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 2020

To give a solution for seismic stability of tunnel faces subjected to earthquake ground shakings, the pseudo-dynamic approach is originally introduced to analyze tunnel face stability in this study. In the light of the upper-bound theorem of limit analysis, an advanced three-dimensional mechanism combined with pseudo-dynamic approach is proposed. Based on this mechanism, the required support pressure on tunnel face can be obtained by equaling external work rates to the internal energy dissipation and implementing an optimization searching procedure related to time. Both time and space feature of seismic waves are properly accounted for in the proposed mechanism. For this reason, the proposed mechanism can better represent the actual influence of seismic motion and has a remarkable advantage in evaluating the effects of vertical seismic acceleration, soil amplification factor, seismic wave period and initial phase difference on tunnel face stability. Furthermore, the pseudo-dynamic approach is compared with the pseudo-static approach. The difference between them is illustrated from a new but understandable perspective. The comparison demonstrates that the pseudo-static approach is a conservative method but still could provide precise enough results as the pseudo-dynamic approach if the value of seismic wavelengths is large or the height of soil structures is small.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.59-69
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• 2018

This study focused on the mechanical and hydraulic characteristics of underwater tunnels based on Mohr-Coulomb (M-C), Hoek-Brown (H-B) and generalized H-B failure criteria. An improved approach for calculating stress, displacement and plastic radius of the circular tunnel considering hydraulic-mechanical coupling was developed. The innovation of this study was that the radius-incremental-approach was reconstructed (i.e., the whole plastic zone is divided into a finite number of concentric annuli by radius), stress and displacement of each annulus were determined in terms of numerical method and Terzaghi's effective stress principle. The validation of the proposed approach was conducted by comparing with the results in Brown and Bray (1982) and Park and Kim (2006). In addition, the Rp-pin curve (plastic radius-internal supporting pressure curve) was obtained using the numerical iterative method, and the plastic radius of the deep-buried tunnel could be obtained by interpolation method in terms of the known value of internal supporting pressure pin. Combining with the theories in Carranza and Fairhurst (2000), the improved technique for assessing the reliability of the tunnel support was proposed.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.28 no.7
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• pp.17-30
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• 2012

A new trenchless tunneling method using pressurizing support has been developed. As it overcomes shortcomings of conventional methods, it is applied to the field. The main concept of the new method is the pressurization system which, by means of pressurization bag between outer flange of steel ribs and excavated perimeter, applies the pressure corresponding to the magnitude of the relaxed earth pressure caused by excavation to the ground to prevent ground displacement. The stability of the support members and effect of displacement control of the new method were verified through several ways such as numerical tests and various model tests. The new method was applied to the construction of a 10.7 m wide, 7.9 m high and 85 m long road tunnel that passes under Yeongdong Expressway. By applying the new method, the tunnel construction was successfully completed in 13.5 months. It decreases the construction period to 35% compared to that of conventional methods, and ground displacement was almost negligible.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.397-419
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• 2012

The pressurizing support tunneling method has been developed that overcomes shortcomings of conventional trenchless methods and applied to the field. The main concept of the new method is the pressurization system which, by means of pressurization bag between outer flange of steel ribs and excavated perimeter, applies higher pressure than the pressure relaxed by excavation to the ground to prevent ground displacement. The stability of the support members and effect of displacement control of the new method were verified through 3D numerical analyses. The new method was applied to the construction of a 10.7 m wide, 7.9 m high and 85 m long ramp tunnel that passes under ${\bigcirc}{\bigcirc}$ Expressway. By applying the new method, the tunnel construction was successfully completed in 13.5 months which decreases construction time to 35% compared to conventional methods, and ground displacement was almost negligible.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.203-214
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• 2004

This paper describes a method for developing a multi-degree-of freedom aero-elasto-plastic model of a base-isolated mid-rise building. The horizontal stiffness of isolators is modeled by several tension springs and the vertical support is performed by air pressure from a compressor. A lead damper and a steel damper are modeled by a U-shaped lead line and an aluminum line. With this model, the frequency ratio of torsional vibration to sway vibration, and plastic displacements of isolation materials can be changed easily when needed. The results of isolation material tests and free vibration tests show that this model provides the object performance. The peak displacement factors are about 4.5 regardless of wind speed in wind tunnel tests, but their gust response factor decreases with increment of wind speed.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.51-69
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• 2024

Currently, composite lining mountain tunnels in China are generally classified based on the [BQ] method for the surrounding rock grade. Increasingly, tunnel field construction is replicated indoors for scale down model tests. However, the development of analogous materials for model tests of composite lining tunnels with different surrounding rock grades is still unclear. In this study, typical Class III and V surrounding rock analogous materials and corresponding composite lining support materials were developed. The whole processes of excavation-support dynamics of the mountain tunnels were simulated. Data on the variation of deformations, contact pressures and strains on the surrounding rock were obtained. Finally, a comparative analysis between model tests and numerical simulations was performed to verify the rationality of analogous material development. The following useful conclusions were obtained by analyzing the data from the tests. The main analogous materials of Class III surrounding rock are barite powder, high-strength gypsum and quartz sand with fly ash, quartz sand, anhydrous ethanol and rosin for Class V surrounding rock. Analogous materials for rockbolts, steel arches are replaced by aluminum bar and iron bar respectively with both shotcrete and secondary lining corresponding to gypsum and water. In addition, load release rate of Class V surrounding rock should be less than Class III surrounding rock. The fenestration level had large influence on the load sharing ratio of the secondary lining, with a difference of more than 30%, while the influence of the support time was smaller. The Sharing ratios of secondary lining in Class III surrounding rock do not exceed 12%, while those of Class V surrounding rock exceed 40%. The overall difference between the results of model tests and numerical simulations is small, which verifies the feasibility of similar material development in this study.