the rock masses in a construction site of underground cavern are generally not continuous, due to the presence of discontinuities, such as bedding, joints, faults, and fractures. the performance of an underground cavern is principally ruled by the mechanical behaviors of the discontinuities in the vicinity of the cavern. during underground excavation, many surrounding rock failures have close r...

Pre-stress degradation or looseness of rock bolts in mining or tunnel engineering threatens the stability and reliability of the structures. In this paper, an innovative piezoelectric device named a "smart washer" with the impedance method is proposed with the aim of developing a real-time device to monitor the pre-stress level of rock bolts. The proposed method was verified through tests on a ...

The Konjsko tunnel is an integral part of the Zagreb-Split-Dubrovnik highway, section Prgomet-Dugopolje. It consists of two tunnel tubes having 1326.0 and 1133.8 meters in length. The greatest overburden amounts to 150 m. This paper presents geotechnical measurement results and back numerical analyses. Back numerical analyses in combination with geotechnical measurements enable safer and more r...

The field of hydrogeology is primarily concerned with the flow of water below the ground surface and with transport, normally of solutes and heat, within that water. Many disciplines have contributed to this endeavor which requires skills from across the spectrum of science, engineering and beyond. The diffusion equation describes not only solute transport but also the flow of water, via Darcy’...

BACKGROUND Embryonic stem (ES) cells self-renew as coherent colonies in which cells maintain tight cell-cell contact. Although intercellular communications are essential to establish the basis of cell-specific identity, molecular mechanisms underlying intrinsic cell-cell interactions in ES cells at the signaling level remain underexplored. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Here we show that endo...

System engineering is one of the most powerful tools for comprehensive project management and control. This tool emphasized the life cycle of the projects, manages every single activity and helps manage the main elements of the project through a set of management and engineering processes. The goal of the current study is to use a system engineering approach in design phase in order or to meet ...