• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.49-57
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• 2009

The governmental investment to SOC facilities currently has increasedthe construction of new roads and the consistent extension of already-existing roads or the line-shape revision of those roads. As a result, the road cut slopes have been increasingrapidly. Unfortunately, human-life damages and property damages frequently occur due to the rockfall and the landslide every year. To reduce those damages, many studies have been performed. The present regulation regarding rockfall protection facilities follows the "Guide for Installation and Management of Road Safety Facilities" issued by MLTM (the Ministry of Land, Transport, and Maritime Affairs) that indicates the standard size of facilities and energy absorbing efficiencies. Most domestic road slopes use standardized rockfall protection facilities based on the regulation. However, there have been doubted about the effectiveness of rockfall protection facilities and the damages caused by rockfalls havebeen increasedevery year. Thus, it seems that relevant studies are necessary on the rockfall protection net being capable of supporting rockfall energies. Accordingly, this study reviews previous literature to investigate the function and the feature of rockfall protection nets and analyzetheir limitations by each type. After that, by using the pullout test device for a rockfall protection net, an experiment on the PVC coating net and the expanded metal is performed under the exact same condition. Finally, the features of the Expended metal is explained with the comparison analysises of load-variation and the confirmation of damaged forms. As a result, there have been founded the problemsof net breaking down and not being able to support due to PVC coating net's material property of disintegration. On the other hand, the Expanded Metal might be expected as a substituteof rockfall protection net according to its capability of support and integration.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.21 no.12
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• pp.17-21
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• 2020

Over 60% of South Korea's land consists of mountainous topography, and recently, due to earthquakes, localized heavy rains and road development, the risks of rockfalls are getting higher. As of now, rockfall prevention facilities are being constructed in 70% of Korean roads cut slope and rockfall protections account for about 20% of them. Rockfall protection's supporting capacity is defined by combining performance of wire mesh, pillars and wire ropes. For the existing constructed rockfall protection, standards of pillars that can absorb 48~61 kJ amount of energy, wire ropes and wire mesh are presented in Guidelines for the installation and management of traffic safety facilities, Rockfall prevention facilities by Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs (2008). However, each factor's correlation of absorption energy is not presented so it is uncertain. This study will conduct vertical drop test and identify adequacy of rockfall protection net of displacement quantity calculation factor which is delta and evaluate rockfall protection net's absorbable energy through standards of overseas performance evaluation criteria.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.12 no.9
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• pp.13-20
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• 2011

There are many mountains in Korean Peninsula, and those used for the construction of roads and railways sectors are forming slopes. Slope collapse occurs with falling rocks and landslide because of the relaxation of the thawing rocks. The heavy rain in summer can also significantly contribute to the process, and abnormal climate change is much more influential than before. Therefore, rockfall-related accidents in rainy season are easily accessible in media every year. There has been a lot of research on application of strengthening compensation of the sections in order to minimize casualties and property damage. Rockfall Protection Net, however, has not been focused on much in the field yet. This study highlights the need of Rockfall Protection Net, since it can segregate the falling rocks inside the net relatively safely. Although there has been a little doubt about the effectiveness of rockfall protection facilities, it is obvious that relevant studies dealing with the solidity of the net are necessary for the rockfall protection net to be capable of supporting rockfall energies. As a result, Expanded metal strength is much more durable compared to the PVC coating net, and it is regarded as an excellent alternative material for the Rockfall Protection Net. In this study, the applicability of Expanded Metal as the alternative of Rockfall Protection Net is verified experimentally.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.11 no.12
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• pp.47-56
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• 2010

The construction of new roads and the consistent extension of already-existing roads or the line-shape revision of those roads are increased with the governmental investment to SOC facilities currently. Accordingly, the road cut slopes are in the trend of rapidly increasing. As the road slope has increased, a lot of human and property damages has entailed consequently and in the local case, numerous studies have carried out aiming at minimizing this damages caused by the rockfall and landslide. In general, standard falling rock prevention facility has employed for most of the local road slope based on "Guide for Installation and Management of Road Safety Facilities" published by MLTM(the Ministry of Land, Transport, and Maritime Affairs) but profound doubt has raised as to whether this rockfall prevention facility would function properly enough to prevent rockfall efficiently without any damages in case of actual occurrence of rockfall. In addition, it is a reality that in most cases, such work is relied on overseas technology as a whole as the local technical level is low and in case of rockfall prevention net, it is judged that a study on rockfall prevention net that is able to endure more powerful rockfall energy is required as the problem including net bursting is taken place as a result of enough bearing force being failed to be demonstrated due to its partial weak point(not uniformly made). Under this background, in this study, three kinds of model depending on mesh size of expanded metal that is considered to have an adoptability as rockfall prevention net, as target are selected and characteristics depending on mesh size of expanded metal is intended to be researched through a pull-out test performance by using pull-out test equipment rockfall prevention net.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.910-920
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• 2008

In Korea, more than 70% of the territory consists of mountains. Therefore, the construction of roads and railways has generally involved with a steep rock slope in which the event of rockfalls are often occurred due to the weathered rock conditions and rainfalls etc. This is dangerous when the rock falls into the road and railway on which vehicles and trains are running. In order to prevent such rockfalls, the rockfall protection fence consisting of post, wire rope, and PVC coating steel net has most used at the bottom of rock slopes. In a general practice, an absorbing rockfall energy, 50kJ is specified by the Ministry of Construction and Transportation. However, questions still remain about whether the rockfall protection fence works effectively or not. In this study, a typical wire rope used in the standard rockfall protection fence was replaced by the high carbon steel wire rod and to validate its capacity of rockfall energy absorbing the field rockfall tests were conducted. The testing results show that a new rockfall protection fence using the high carbon steel wire rods can absorb the rockfall energy more than 50kJ and 20% of construction cost was saved in comparison with the previous rockfall protection fence.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.15 no.11
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• pp.53-59
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• 2014

It has been generally recognized that the conventional rockfall protection nets have several problems to actual field application in the aspect of shock absorption, lack of pullout bearing capacities, and net damages. Because of the recognition, authors have tried to develop a new rockfall protection system consisted of shock absorption parts and hexagonal net configuration. In the previous research by the authors, the performance of the newly developed rockfall protection system has been investigated through the laboratory tests and the full-scale testing. In this study, subsequently, numerical analysis program is organized to make a confirmation of the structural stability and performance. For the correct design procedure of the hexagonal net system, it is essential to understand the various mechanical behavior of the entire system. It is also important to be reproduced the systematic characteristics of the system acquired by laboratory and full-scale testing by numerical analysis in order to carry out the numerical experiment to understand various mechanical behavior of the system. As a conclusion, the hexagonal net has better performance in mechanical and physical behavior compared with that of the rectangular net. Furthermore, due to the hexagonal net shows a good performance in aspect of the load distribution, it gives a good alternative in long-term management of the rockfall protection net.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.373-381
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• 2014

It is difficult to predict the magnitude of a rockfall with respect to the shape, volume, and weight of the rock mass, as a rockfall exhibits erratic behavior that depends on the slope geometry, such as the height and dip of the slope. In this study, a field survey was conducted on the slopes of Ulleung-Do, South Korea, where rockfalls frequently occur along coastal roads, to classify the mode of rockfalls and estimate their magnitude. This study also analyzed the effects of rockfall behavior on roads by applying a simulation technique. Agglomerate and trachytic rocks distributed across the study area produce rockfalls in a differential weathering rockfall mode and a toppling rockfall mode. In terms of rockfall weight, trachytic rockfalls were 2-3 times heavier than agglomerate rockfalls. An analysis of rockfall behavior from the simulation indicates that the impact energy on the road exceeded the absorbing energy of a standard rockfall protection fence; however, the rockfall was secured when a ring-net was applied.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.207-216
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• 2010

Rockfall monitoring systems generally used in the country are mainly based on the detection of tension of protection wire or tilting of protection post due to rock fall. However, rock fall protection net must be installed prior to the monitoring system and continual maintenance work after each rock fall event is required for a normal operation of these detection systems. To solve these problems, we suggested and implemented a non-contact rock fall detection system using multiple photo sensors and additional camera. After a laboratory experiment and field application, we can conclude that this system is effective and reliable for detecting, collecting and analyzing the rock fall information. In addition, lighten and difference operations on two captured images were able to yield rough estimation of size and direction of rock fall.