Available online at www.CivileJournal.org
Civil Engineering Journal
(E-ISSN: 2476-3055; ISSN: 2676-6957)
Vol. 8, No. 01, January, 2022
1
Performance Study of Buried Pipelines under Static Loads
Mahdi J. Alanazi
1
, Yang Qinghua
1*
, Khalil Al-Bukhaiti
1*
1
Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China.
Received 10 October 2021; Revised 01 December 2021; Accepted 16 December 2021; Published 01 January 2022
Abstract
The possibility of servicing lifelines such as highways, railways, pipelines, and tunnels is of great social importance. The
characteristic that separates the buried pipeline from other structures is that its dimensions are very long compared to its
other dimensions. Ground vibrations caused by earthquakes, construction activities, traffic, explosions, and machinery
can damage these structures. Lifeline integrity can be compromised in two ways: (1) direct damage due to excessive
dynamic loading of the lifeline, and (2) indirect damage due to soil failures such as liquefaction, slope instability, and
differential settlements. 3D printing (also known as additive manufacturing) is an advanced manufacturing process that
can automatically produce complex geometric shapes from a 3D computer-aided design model without tools, molds, or
fixtures. This automated manufacturing process has been applied in diverse industries today because it can revolutionize
the construction industry with expected benefits. This research study on the performance of buried pipelines under static
loads to the structure's safety against the possible development of progressive failure. This research study includes a
numerical study, where it was studied many parameters to value the performance of the pipeline. The parameters are (a)
the material of the pipeline (steel, traditional concrete, and 3D concrete printed), (b) the thickness of the pipeline (20, 30,
and 40 mm), and (c) soil type (moist sandy soil, saturated sandy soil, moist cohesive soil, and saturated cohesive soil).
Different results were obtained depending on the type of soil where all pipelines materials' behavior was similar in the
case of moist soil.
Keywords: 3D Printed Concrete; Pipeline; Moist Soil; Saturated Soil.
1. Introduction
It is known that the structures located on the surface of the ground are subject to more significant seismic damage
than the structures located underground. Where the earthquakes destroyed a lot of buried pipelines [1]; thus, the
damage or disruption of the buried gas and water pipelines due to the earthquake leads to economic losses and
disruption of lifeline networks.
In recent years, the development of high-strength and ductile composite materials in earthquake-prone areas has
become an important topic for researchers. These materials have many advantages (e.g., experienced high strength and
displacement capacity under compression and tension loadings). One of the most common composite materials is
Textile-Reinforced Concrete (TRC), which includes a fine-grained concrete matrix and high-strength textile fabric
reinforcement made of alkali-resistant glass fibers or polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) fibers. TRC can be used as structural
strengthening material such as Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP); also, it can be used as a structural element [2].
Viparelli et al. studied pre-stressed concrete large-diameter pipes joint behavior during earthquakes [3]. Susan et al.
* Corresponding author: qhyang@swjtu.edu.cn; khalil2020@my.swjtu.edu.cn
http://dx.doi.org/10.28991/CEJ-2022-08-01-01
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee C.E.J, Tehran, Iran. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms
and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).