• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.511-523
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• 2023

Canal-side roads frequently collapse due to an unexpectedly greater soft-clay thickness with a rapid drawdown situation. This causes annually increased repair and reconstruction costs. This paper aims to explore the effect of soft-clay thickness on the failure in the canal-side road in the case study of Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya rural road no. 1043 (AY. 1043). Before the actual construction, a field vane shear test was performed to determine the undrained shear strength and identify the thickness of the soft clay at the AY. 1043 area. After establishing the usability of AY. 1043, the resistivity survey method was used to evaluate the thickness of the soft clay layer at the failure zone. The screw driving sounding test was used to evaluate the undrained shear strength for the road structure with a medium-stiff clay layer at the failure zone for applying to the numerical model. This model was simulated to confirm the effect of soft-clay thickness on the failure of the canal-side road. The monitoring and testing results showed the tendency of rapid drawdown failure when the canal-side road was located on > 9 m thick of soft clay with a sensitivity > 4.5. The result indicates that the combination of resistivity survey and field vane shear test can be successfully used to inspect the soft-clay thickness and sensitivity before construction. The preliminary design for preventing failure or improving the stability of the canal-side road should be considered before construction under the critical thickness and sensitivity values of the soft clay.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.598-613
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• 2013

This paper deals with the dynamic effect of pipeline installation and embedment for the on-bottom stability design of offshore pipelines on soft clay. On-bottom stability analysis of offshore pipelines on soft clay by DNV-RP-F109 (DNV, 2010) results in very unreasonable pipe embedment and concrete coating thickness. Thus, a new procedure of the on-bottom stability analysis was established considering dynamic effects of pipeline installation and pipe-soil interaction at touchdown point (TDP). This analysis procedure is composed of three steps: global pipeline installation analysis, local analysis at TDP, modified on-bottom stability analysis using DNV-RP-F109. Data obtained from the dynamic pipeline installation analysis were utilized for the finite element analysis (FEA) of the pipeline embedment using the non-linear soil property. From the analysis results of the proposed procedure, an optimum design of on-bottom stability of offshore pipeline on soft clay can be achieved. This procedure and result will be useful to assess the on-bottom stability analysis of offshore pipelines on soft clay. The analysis results were justified by an offshore field inspection.

• Current Research on Agriculture and Life Sciences
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• v.2
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• pp.98-108
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• 1984

Generally, in case of constructing the embankments on the soft clay layers, one-dimensional consolidation settlement under the assumption of a middle position stress in a single layer makes a great difference with the integral value, ie. the final settlement. Consequently, to find how many equal segments of the soft clay layer are needed to converge into the integral value and which position should be taken as a position of mean stress, authors compared the theoretical value of the settlement due to one-dimensional consolidation with the practical value of the settlement due to two dimensional consolidation. The obtained results are as follows. 1) The practical value of the two-dimensional consolidation settlement can be estimated by the 74-83% theoretical value of the one-dimensional consolidation settlement. 2) When the soft clay layer was cut into 8-16 equal segments according to the depth, one-dimensional consolidation settlement converge into the integral value. 3) Assuming a total soft clay layer as a single one, the depth of a mean stress position is 0.29-0.37 of the thickness of the total soft clay layer. 4) The Hyperbola Method which presumes the long-term settlement from the short-term practical value of settlement is credible, because all practical value of the settlement are in safe side of the standard error of estimation and the correlation coefficient is up to 0.95.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.1-27
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• 2022

Extensive laboratory tests were conducted to investigate the effect of load amplitude, geogrid position, and number of geogrid layers, thickness of ballast layer and clay stiffness on behavior of reinforced ballast layer and induced strains in geogrid. A half full-scale railway was constructed for carrying out the tests, the model consists of two rails 800 mm in length with three wooden sleepers (900 mm × 10 mm × 10 mm). The ballast was overlying 500 mm thickness clay in two states, soft and stiff state. Laboratory tests were conducted to investigate the response of the ballast and the clay layers where the ballast was reinforced by a geogrid. Settlement in ballast and clay, soil pressure and pore water pressure induced in the clay were measured in reinforced and unreinforced ballast cases. It was concluded that the effect of frequency on the settlement ratio is almost constant after 500 cycles. This is due to that the total settlement after 500 cycles, almost reached its peak value, which means that the ballast particles become very close to each other, so the frequency is less effective for high contact particles forces. The average maximum vertical stress and pore water pressure increased with frequency.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 1992.10a
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• pp.113-120
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• 1992

The construction of container terminal at Brani, Singapore required the improvement of soft clay layer having the thickness of about 6.5m, average moisture content of 79.4%, liquid limit of 90.4%, plastic limit of 21.8%, field vane strength of 10 to 25 KPa, pre-consolidation pressure of 225 to 60 KPa and compression index of 0.4 to 1.0. For the improvement of this layer, Colbon drains of 1.3m spacing in triangular pattern were installed to the bottom of the layer and surcharge of more than 11.25m high sand fill was later applied to the treated area. The settlement and lateral displacement of the ground were measured and the speed of surcharge filling was controlled, based on these readings. The removal of surcharge was determinied using the estimated time for the 90% degree of consolidation under the design pressure of 180KPa. The field and laboratory test results show that the soft clay layer has been improved substantially in its strength and consolidation characteristics: increase in strength of about 50KPa and pre-consolidation pressure and decrease in void ratio and compression index.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2000.11a
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• pp.25-32
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• 2000

In order to analyze the behavior of piled abutment adjacent to surcharge loads a numerical study was conducted. In 2D plane stalin analysis, the distribution of lateral soil movement was investigated by varying the thickness of clay layer and the magnitude of surcharge loads. In 3D analysis, the magnitude and distribution of lateral pile-soil movement were studied for different cap rigidity. Based on limited parametric studies, a simple method is proposed to identify the lateral pressure of piled abutment adjacent to surcharge loads.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2005.03a
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• pp.232-239
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• 2005

Recently geosynthetics that can be constructed on soft ground have been used for reinforcement and separation in various ways. Through laboratory model tests and numerical analysis, in this study, estimated the suitability of cable elements and appropriate input factors considering loading effect in modeling of geosynthetics. First, in laboratory model tests, geosynthetics were constructed on the clay, and covered with the thickness, 7.5cm of sand mat. And then static and dynamic model tests were performed measuring loading, settlement, ground lateral displacement, and displacements of geosynthetics, but, for cyclic loading, bearing capacity increased linearly with stiff slop because cyclic loading with constant cyclic pressure compacted the ground. Numerical analysis were performed with FLAC 4.0 2D using Mohr-Coulomb and Modified Cam-Clay models, and they compared with the results of model tests. Cable elements of FLAC in modeling geosynthetics couldn't consider the characteristics of geosynthetics that increase shear strength between geosynthetics and clay according to the loading increase. Therefore, in this study, appropriate equation that can consider loading effects in Cable elements was proposed by Case Study.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.67-84
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• 2005

This research was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of reinforcement for nearly saturated soft clay compaction. The effectiveness was investigated by roller compaction test using nearly saturated clay specimens. The nearly saturated condition was obtained by submerging clay in the water for 12 hours. High water content specimens were compacted in plane strain condition by a steel roller. A specimen was compacted by four 5 cm horizontal layers. Specimens were prepared fur both reinforced and unreinforced cases to evaluate the effectiveness of reinforcement. Used reinforcement is a composite consisted of both woven and non-woven geotextile. The composite usually provides drainage and tensile reinforcement to hi인 water-contented clay so that it increases bearing capacity. Therefore, large compaction load can be applied to reinforced clay and it achieves higher density effectively. The reinforcement also increases compaction efficiency because it reduces the ratio between shear and vertical forces during compaction process. The maximum vertical stress on the base of specimen usually decreased with higher compaction thickness. The reinforcement increases soil stiffness under the compaction roller and it initiates stress concentration. As a result, it maintains higher vertical stress level on the base of specimen that provides better compaction characteristics. Based on test results, it can be concluded that the reinforcement is essential to achieve effective compaction on soft clay.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.586-597
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• 2022

In this study, a model was developed for the estimating the locational thickness information of the upper clay layer to be used for the consolidation vulnerability evaluation in the Nakdong river estuary. To estimate ground layer thickness information, we developed four spatial estimation models using machine learning algorithms, which are RF (Random Forest), SVR (Support Vector Regression) and GPR (Gaussian Process Regression), and geostatistical technique such as Ordinary Kriging. Among the 4,712 borehole data in the study area collected for model development, 2,948 borehole data with an upper clay layer were used, and Pearson correlation coefficient and mean squared error were used to quantitatively evaluate the performance of the developed models. In addition, for qualitative evaluation, each model was used throughout the study area to estimate the information of the upper clay layer, and the thickness distribution characteristics of it were compared with each other.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.77-83
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• 2006

The purpose of this study is to analyze lateral displacement behavior of clay layers in case of the banking in soft ground through model tests. Seven model tests varying with thickness of soft clay and loading velocity are performed to correlate between ground heaving and loading velocity. In case of low loading velocity, vertical settlement below loading plate and small ground heaving are obviously observed. In case of the high loading velocity, it is shown that both soil displacement at the end of a loading plate and surface heaving are large. In addition, the calculated displacements show good agreement with three cases of field measurements in clay with high moisture contents so that we can predict the range of heaving area and the amount of heaving.