LAUSR

AbstractBuried energy pipelines span for hundreds of thousands of kilometres, crossing zones of soil instability and may need to be designed to resist differential ground movements. As a part of a comprehensive experimental and numerical study to examine the flexural performance of steel and fibreglass pressure pipes when loaded by lateral earth movements, this paper presents the numerical work simulating glass-fiber-reinforced polymers (GFRP) pipes that are 102 mm (4 in.) in nominal diameter and 1,830 mm (6 ft) long, subjected to lateral soil loading. The study investigated the effect of pipe laminate structure for crossply (+85/−6), and angle-ply (+55/−56) laminates on soil resistance capacity, and the net pipe deflections at different burial depth-to-diameter (H/D) ratios of 3, 5, and 7. The development and verification of three-dimensional finite-element model against experimental data and a comparison against numerical data for steel control pipes of comparable dimensions and pressure rating is also ...