Structural Behavior of Pipelines Buried in Expansive Soils under Rainfall Infiltration (Part I: Transverse Behavior)

Finite Element Analysis Unsaturated Soil Buried Pipeline Rainfall Infiltration Suction Radial Internal Forces.

Authors

  • Mohammed Bouatia
    m.bouatia@univ-batna2.dz
    a) LGC-ROI, Laboratoire de Génie Civil-Risques et Ouvrages en Interaction, University of Batna 2-Mostefa Ben Boulaid, 0578 Batna, Algeria. b) Department of Geotechnics and Transportation, School of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Johor Bahru, Johor,, Malaysia
  • Rafik Demagh LGC-ROI, Laboratoire de Génie Civil-Risques et Ouvrages en Interaction, University of Batna 2-Mostefa Ben Boulaid, 0578 Batna,, Algeria
  • Zohra Derriche LTPiTE, Laboratoire Travaux Publics, ingénierie des Transports Environnement, Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Travaux Publics, 16051 Algiers,, Algeria

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Landslides, fault movements as well as shrink/swell soil displacements can exert important additional loadings on soil buried structures such as pipelines. These loadings may damage the buried structures whenever they reach the strength limits of the structure material. This paper presents a two-dimensional plane-strain finite element analysis of an 800 mm diameter water supply pipeline buried within the expansive clay of the Ain-Tine area (Mila, Algeria), considering the unsaturated behavior of the soil under a rainfall infiltration of 4 mm/day intensity and which lasts for different time durations (8, 15 and 30 days). The simulations were carried out using the commercial software module SIGMA/W and considering different initial soil suction conditions P1, P2, P3 and P4. The soil surface heave and the radial induced forces on the pipeline ring (i.e., Axial , Shear  forces and bending moments ) results indicated that following the changes of suction the rainfall infiltration can cause considerable additional loads on the buried pipeline. Moreover, these loads are proportionally related to the initial soil suction conditions as well as to the rainfall infiltration time duration. The study highlighted that the unsaturated behavior of expansive soils because of their volume instability are very sensitive to climatic conditions and can exert adverse effects on pipelines buried within such soils. As a result, consistent pipeline design should seriously consider the study of the effect of the climatic conditions on the overall stability of the pipeline structure.