Pack micropiles were recently developed to improve pile capacity of general micropiles. Pack micropiles were made by warping thread bar or steel pipe of general micropile by geotexlile pack and grouting inside the pack with pressure.According to the pressure, the boring hole could be enlarged. A series of pile uplift tests were performed on three micropiles. Two out of the three piles were the pack micropiles and the other was the general micropile, in which a thread bar was used in the boring hole. According to the pressure applied to the pack micropiles, the diameter of boring hole was enlarged from 152 mm to 220 mm. Unit skin friction mobilized on side surfaces of micropiles increased with displacement of pile head and reached on a constant value, which represents that the relative displacement between piles (or thread bar) and soils was reached on critical state. And the uplift resistance of pack micropile was higher than that of general micropile. Two reasons can be considered: One is that the frictional surface increases due to enlarging diameter of boring holes and the other is that the unit skin friction could increase due to compressing effect of surrounding soils by soil displacement as much as the enlarging volume of boring hole.

No abstract

No abstract

The hydration process of Controlled Low Strength Material (CLSM) used for backfill is the primary factor to determine the construction period. The objective of this study is to monitor the hydration process of CLSM using the Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) and to establish the relationship between dielectric constant and compressive strength. The CLSM specimen is composed of cement, flyash, silt, sand, accelerator, and water. The material characteristics of the CLSM including flow, unit weight, compressive strength are investigated. To measure the dielectric constant of the CLSM during the curing time, TDR probe incorporated with a mold and a reflectometer are used. Experimental results show that the dielectric constant remains constant at early stage, and then decreases as the curing time increases. In addition, the dielectric constant is related to the compressive strength in inverse power function. This paper suggests that the TDR technique may be used as a non-destructive testing method in order to estimate the compressive strength of the CLSM mixture under construction.

This paper describes large scale pullout test results, in order to evaluate extensibility effect of strip-type reinforcement. The same test for ribbed steel strip reinforcement also is conducted to compare the friction resistance reinforcements' evaluation results. The pullout resistance of the ribbed steel strip reinforcement, which has a small cross sectional areas, was better than the friction resistance reinforcements' due to the bearing (passive) resistance. In case of friction resistance reinforcements, the pullout resistance of extensible reinforcement was better than inextensible reinforcement' even though they have a similar cross sectional areas.