This paper aims to investigate the characteristics of the reclaimed soil around the Busan New Port through a literature review and to identify the limitations of the soil improvement methods applied to date. Furthermore, based on post-construction bor...
This paper aims to investigate the characteristics of the reclaimed soil around the Busan New Port through a literature review and to identify the limitations of the soil improvement methods applied to date. Furthermore, based on post-construction borehole logs from the first phase of the Busan New Port West Container Terminal project, we estimated the secondary consolidation index and compared it with the actual consolidation settlement observed at the Ungdong Hinterland Complex. This analysis confirmed that relying solely on design data to predict long-term settlement has significant limitations. Therefore, to clearly understand the influence of the secondary compression index, long-term settlement measurement data from Pier 5 of the Busan New Port was applied to a settlement prediction method. Actual ground information was obtained, and the EOP was calculated from the settlement curve to determine the secondary consolidation settlement. The results of this study are as follows. (1) Although port construction has expanded and the depth of the clay subgrade has increased, creating conditions conducive to long-term settlement, an analysis of the geotechnical data from the geotechnical report following the completion of Phase 1 of the Busan New Port West Container Terminal construction revealed that the estimated average secondary consolidation index was 0.00423 and the estimated average secondary consolidation settlement was 0.1212 m, figures close to ideal values. (2) In the report analyzing the causes of settlement in the Ungdong Hinterland Complex, the secondary consolidation settlement over a 30-year period was estimated based on geotechnical data from borehole logs to be 0.226–0.664 m, showing a difference of approximately 2 to 6 times compared to the consolidation settlement estimated in the previous design. (3) The range of long-term settlement over 14 years at 100 points along the road section within Pier 5 of the New Busan Port was 0.25–0.5 m. When using the hyperbolic method and the Asaoka method—two settlement prediction methods—to predict settlement over 1,000 days, 2,500 days, 4,000 days of measurement data to predict settlement over 5,000 days. While predictions were somewhat possible using the 4,000-day data, their utility was very low. This phenomenon occurred despite having sufficient settlement measurement data; the observed settlement was greater than that of previous data and did not converge, which is evidence that secondary consolidation is much greater than predicted during the design phase. (4) Assuming that high organic matter content was the cause of this settlement, dredged soil samples were collected and laboratory tests were conducted, confirming that the organic matter content of the dredged soil samples ranged from approximately 5.7% to 9.12%. To determine a meaningful secondary compression index based on organic matter, experiments were conducted with organic matter content ranging from 0% to 24% in 4% increments; the results showed that the secondary compression index ranged from 0.0057 to 0.018. (5) In addition, by obtaining borehole log data from locations where actual settlement was measured to verify the thickness of the clay layer, and by calculating the EOP from the settlement graph to analyze the secondary compression index and secondary consolidation settlement, it was found that it takes approximately 4 months to reach EOP, with the secondary consolidation index ranging from 0.0149 to 0.0273 and the secondary consolidation settlement ranging from 0.169 to 0.282 m. Ultimately, settlement management currently managed individually by port operators is unsystematic and unintegrated, making it difficult to address current settlement issues. To construct a stable Jinhae New Port with the goal of becoming a smart port, it is necessary to incorporate secondary consolidation settlement into design parameters and simultaneously establish a settlement measurement system operated by public institutions over the very long term, utilizing GeoBIM from the construction planning stage through the maintenance stage. Therefore, recognizing the importance of data and to establish a long-term system, the reliability of the secondary consolidation parameterization process must be enhanced by having the government or public institutions, rather than the private sector, take full responsibility for measurement management and transform the data into big data.