BURIED STEEL PIPELINES IN SEISMIC AREAS

Abstract eng:
Pipelines constructed in geohazards areas, are subjected to ground-induced actions from seismic fault movements, slope instability, soil subsidence, and liquefaction-induced lateral spreading, which are associated with the development of severe strains in the pipeline, constituting major threats for their structural integrity. In the course of pipeline design, calculation of those strains is necessary for safeguarding pipeline integrity, and towards this purpose the development of reliable analytical design tools that account for soil-pipe interaction is required. In the present paper, soil-pipe interaction in buried steel pipelines subjected to severe ground-induced actions is investigated through an integrated approach, using both experimental and numerical methodologies. First, the axial and transversal soil-pipe interactions are examined through full-scale experimental testing, and numerical simulations with rigorous finite element models, which use solid elements for the soil and shell elements for the pipe. The comparison between the experimental results and the finite element results offers valuable information for the key material parameters towards accurate simulation of soil-pipe interaction in both axial and transverse directions. Also a special-purpose full-scale “landslide/fault” experimental test is also conducted, and it is simulated numerically in order to examine the soil-pipe interaction in a complex loading conditions. Furthermore, a straight-forward analytical methodology is analyzed and compared with existing analytical and numerical methodologies for stress analysis of buried pipelines. This methodology can predict quite satisfactorily (a) the maximum induced strains in the pipeline wall due to permanent ground deformation and (b) the length of the deformed shape of the pipeline under symmetric and non-symmetric soil resistance. The proposed methodology introduces a novel, simple and efficient tool for pipeline analysis and preliminary design towards assessing geohazard actions on buried steel pipelines.

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