일반적으로 지중구조물은 지상구조물보다 지진하중 작용 시 상대적으로 작은 영향을 받는다. 그러나 많은 연구자들은 심각한 지중구조물 손상에 대해 보고하고 있으며 동적 흙-구조물 상호작용에 대한 지속적인 연구를 수행하고 있다. 본 연구에서는 유한요소해석 프로그램을 활용한 흙-구조물 상호작용을 지중구조물에 적용하고 지중구조물 하중저감기법인 ETI의 지오폼을 해석변수로 경감효과 및 최적 지오폼을 제안하고자 한다. 해석연구에 고려된 지오폼은 EPS 12, EPS 15, EPS 19이다. 해석 결과로부터 지진하중시 최대 50%까지 지중하중이 경감되었으며, 수평처짐은 26%, 수직처짐은 8%이 경감되었다. 본 해석연구를 토대로 ETI 공법을 적용한 지중구조물이 정적 및 지진하중 하에서도 하중의 영향을 경감시키는 것을 확인할 수 있었다.

The objective of this study is to develop the innovative application methodology of Geofoam for sustainable design of eco-bridges under deep soil cover. Traditionally, the soft maerial zone has been located on the top or above the buried conduit to reduce the earth pressures, which is called imperfect trench installation (ITI). There, however have been no previous studies for the application of ITI on buried arch structures. This study investigated the structural effects of Geofoam surrouding buried arch bridges, which was named as embedded trench installation (ETI). Various shapes and locations of Geofoam have been investigated for both ETI and ITI. The findings from this study showed that ETI could effectively increase the stability and sustainability of deeply buried eco-bridges.

In order to solve the limitation of the long span arch structures, a numerical analysis was carried out to investigate the effects of embedded trench installation technique to the earth pressure of an underground arch-rib shaped structure. For the arch-rib shape, the parabolic curve and the circular shape were analyzed according to the span-rise ratio varying from 0.1 to 0.5. The finite element analysis program, ABAQUS (2016), was used to consider the soil - structure interaction. The results from the analysis was verified through comparison with the existing Geofoam application technique.

This research investigates the effects of trench installation methods with expanded polystyrene (EPS) geofoam on the behavior of buried corrugated steel arch structure. A universal finite element analysis program, ABAQUS, was used to model and analyze the structure. For this study, the S275 corrugated steel with a profile of 152x51mm and the arch has fixed boundary condition. The structure was analyzed for three different configurations, namely; without EPS geofoam, imperfect trench installation (ITI), and embedded trench installation (ETI). ITI and ETI cases were further divided depending on the width and height of EPS geofoam. The width of EPS geofoam varies from the span of the arch up to a 30% increase of the span of the arch while its height varies from the rise of the arch upto 100% increase of the rise of the arch. The results from the finite element analysis revealed that the ETI reduced the wall stresses by at least 53.95%. It is recommended to conduct further study regarding ETI to validate the results and to further improved the design criteria of buried corrugated steel arch as it is expected to bring about cost reduction and stability for buried structures.