• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.347-360
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• 2018

Due to the concentration and congestion of traffic in Seoul metropolitan area, effective utilization of underground space is required, and construction of various underground structures such as a double deck tunnel is increasing. Double deck tunnels are divided into upper and lower runways, and the most important part is middle slab. To investigate seismic behavior of middle slab, experimental study is required because of the complexity of the load and the mechanism of earthquake. In this study, centrifugal model tests were conducted to investigate the response characteristics of earthquake response according to the support conditions of the middle slab of a double deck tunnel. Artificial, Ofunato (short period) and Hachinohe (long period) seismic waves were employed in the experimental study. As a result, it was confirmed that the acceleration attenuation of elastomeric bearings condition was 10.6% in artificial earthquake, 13.6% in Ofunato earthquake, and 10.3% in Hachinohe earthquake. The results indicate that elastomeric bearings have some advantages in the viewpoint of seismic behaviors.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.235-253
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• 2018

Groundwater flow induced by cracks in a buried pipe causes ground loss in the vicinity of it which can lead to underground cavities and sinkhole problems. In this study, the ground collapse mechanism and the failure mode based on an aperture in the pipe located in cohesionless ground were investigated through a series of physical model studies. As the influence parameters, size of the crack, flow velocity in the pipe, groundwater level, ground cover depth and ground composition were adopted in order to examine how each of the parameters affected the behavior of the ground collapse. Influence of every experimental condition was evaluated by the final shape of ground failure (failure mode) and the amount of ground loss. According to the results, the failure mode appeared to be a 'Y' shape which featured a discontinuous change of the angle of erosion when a groundwater level was equal to the height of the ground depth. While in the case of a water table getting higher than the level of ground cover depth, the shape of the failure mode turned to be a 'V' shape that had a constant erosion angle. As the height of the ground depth increased, it was revealed that a mechanism where a vertically collapsed area which consisted of a width proportional to the ground height and a constant length occurred was repeated.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.255-268
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• 2018

Subsea tunnel can be highly vulnerable to seawater intrusion due to unexpected high-water pressure during construction. An artificial ground freezing (AGF) will be a promising alternative to conventional reinforcement or water-tightening technology under high-water pressure conditions. In this study, the freezing energy and required time was calculated by the theoretical model of the heat flow to estimate the total amount of refrigerant required for the artificial ground freezing. A lab-scale freezing chamber was devised to investigate changes in the thermal and mechanical properties of sandy soil corresponding to the variation of the salinity and water pressure. The freezing time was measured with different conditions during the chamber freezing tests. Its validity was evaluated by comparing the results between the freezing chamber experiment and the numerical analysis. In particular, the freezing time showed no significant difference between the theoretical model and the numerical analysis. The amount of refrigerant for artificial ground freezing was estimated from the numerical analysis and the freezing efficiency obtained from the chamber test. In addition, the energy ratio for maintaining frozen status was calculated by the proposed formula. It is believed that the energy ratio for freezing will depend on the depth of rock cover in the subsea tunnels and the water temperature on the sea floor.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.327-343
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• 2004

During tunnel construction, ground failures often occur due to existence of weak zones, such as faults, joints, and cavities, ahead of tunnel face. It is hard to detect effectively weak zones, which can lead underground structure to fail after excavation and before supporting, by using conventional characterization methods. In this study, an enhanced analytical method of predicting weak zones ahead of tunnel face is developed to overcome some problems in the conventional geophysical exploration methods. The analytical method is based on Coulomb's and Gauss' laws with considering the characteristics of electric fields subjected to rock mass. Using the developed method, closed form solutions are obtained to detect a spherical shaped zone and an oriented fault ahead of tunnel face respectively. The analytical results suggest that the presence of weak zones and their sizes, location, and states can be accurately predicted by combining a proper inversion process with resistance measured from several electrodes on the tunnel face. It appears that the skin depth or resistivity in rock mass is affected by the diameter of tunnel face, natural electric potential and noises induced by experimental measurement and spatial distribution of uncertain properties. The developed analytical solution is verified through experimental tests. About 1800 concrete blocks of 5cm by 5cm by 5cm in size are prepared and used to model a joint rock mass around tunnel face. Weak zones are simulated ahead of tunnel face with a material which has relatively higher conductivity than concrete blocks. Experimental results on the model test show a good agreement with analytical results.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.499-509
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• 2016

In recent years, the use of underground spaces becomes more frequent and the demands for urban tunnels are rapidly increasing. The urban tunnels constructed in the ground with a shallow and soft cover might be deformed in various forms on the face, which would lead, the tunnels to behavior 3-dimensionally, which may have a great impact on the longitudinal load transfer. The tunnel face might deform in various forms depending on the construction method, overburden and the heterogeneity of the ground. And accordingly, the type and size of the distribution of the load transferred to the ground adjacent to the tunnel face as well as the form of the loosened ground may appear in various ways depending on the deformation form of the tunnel face. Therefore, in this study was conducted model tests by idealizing the deformation behavior of the tunnel face, that were constant deformation, the maximum deformation on the top and the maximum deformation on the bottom. And the test results were analyzed focusing on the deformation of the face and the longitudinal load transfer at the ground above the tunnel. As results, it turned out that the size and the distribution type of the load, which was transferred to the tunnel as well as the earth pressure on the face were affected by the deformation type of the face. The largest load was transferred to the tunnel when the deformation was in a constant form. Less load was transferred when the maximum deformation on the bottom, and the least load was transferred when the maximum deformation on the top. In addition, it turned out that, if the cover became more shallow, a longitudinal load transfer in the tunnel would limited to the region close to the face; however, if the cover became higher than a certain value, the area of the load transfer would become wider.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.485-501
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• 2012

This study aims to experimentally investigate ground settlement and ground movement around the square pipe by its penetration in sandy ground. A series of laboratory model tests were carried out with a small-scale auger equipment for penetration of a square pipe as well as a newly designed test box with a sand raining equipment. From the experiments, it is shown that a square pipe induces ground movement evenly around it in a low overburden condition. However, as the overburden becomes higher, ground movement by a square pipe is concentrated mainly above it. Especially, horizontal strain above the square pipe was mainly dominated by its penetration. In addition, sand surface movement is the smallest in case of the dimensionless penetration rate equal to 0.2. When its penetration rate of the square pipe is fixed, the rotation speed of auger controls surface movement whether it is settlement or heaving. Therefore, the selection of an optimal dimensionless rate for the square pipe is a key design factor to minimize ground settlement in a trenchless construction.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.501-513
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• 2020

Cutter cutting tests for the cutter placement in the cutter head are being conducted through various studies. Although the cutter spacing at the minimum specific energy is mainly reflected in the cutter head design, since the optimum cutter spacing at the same cutter penetration depth varies depending on the rock conditions, studies on deciding the optimum cutter spacing should be actively conducted. The machine learning techniques such as the decision tree-based regression model and the SVM regression model were applied to predict the optimum cutter spacing ratio for the nonlinear relationship between cutter penetration depth and cutter spacing. Since the decision tree-based methods are greatly influenced by the number of data, SVM regression predicted optimum cutter spacing ratio according to the penetration depth more accurately and it is judged that the SVM regression will be effectively used to decide the cutter spacing when designing the cutter head if a large amount of data of the optimum cutter spacing ratio according to the penetration depth is accumulated.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.175-188
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• 2009

When a new tunnel is excavated by the drill and blast method near pre-existing underground structures or tunnels due to the region restricted condition such as urban area, the ground will be relaxed by the excavation. In this case, issues can be created in terms of stability of pre-existing underground structures. One of major factors determining the stability of pre-existing underground structures can be a separation distance between pre-existing underground structures and a newly excavated tunnel. The region of ground relaxation defined by the plastic zone due to new excavation can be varied by separation distance. In this study, in other to estimate an influence of new tunnel excavation in terms of separation distance on the stability of pre-existing large pipelines, two-dimensional scaled model tests using plaster were performed for six models which have a different separation distance, The results show that based on the analysis of induced displacement during tunnel construction, the displacement decreases as the separation distance between large pipeline and new tunnel is increased until the distance is 2.5 times of pipeline diameter. Beyond this point, however, the displacement has become stabilized.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.453-467
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• 2018

The excavation performance and the cutting tool wear prediction of shield TBM are very important issues for design and construction in TBM tunneling. For hard-rock TBMs, CSM and NTNU model have been widely used for prediction of disc cutter wear and penetration rate. But in case of soft-ground TBMs, the wear evaluation and the excavation performance have not been studied in details due to the complexity of the ground behavior and therefore few testing methods have been proposed. In this study, a new soil abrasion and penetration tester (SAPT) that simulates EPB TBM excavation process is introduced which overcomes the drawbacks of the previously developed soil abrasivity testers. Parametric tests for penetration rate, foam mixing ratio, foam concentration were conducted to evaluate influential parameters affecting TBM excavation and also ripper wear was measured in laboratory. The results of artificial soil specimen composed of 70% illite and 30% silica sand showed TBM additives such as foam play a key role in terms of excavation and tool wear.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.484-495
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• 2020

To numerically simulate the advance of EPB TBM, various type of numerical analysis methods have been adopted including discrete element method (DEM), finite element method (FEM), and finite difference method (FDM). In this paper, an EPB TBM driving model was proposed by using coupled DEM-FDM. In the numerical model, DEM was applied in the TBM excavation area, and contact properties of particles were calibrated by a series of triaxial tests. Since the ground around the excavation area was coupled with FDM, the horizontal stress considering the coefficient of earth pressure at rest could be applied. Also, the number of required particles was reduced and the efficiency of the analysis was increased. The proposed model can control the advance rate and rotational speed of the cutter head and screw conveyor, and derive the torque, thrust force, chamber pressure, and discharging during TBM tunnelling.