3D Nonlinear Modeling of Buried Continuous Pipeline Subjected to Ground Compression

Abstract

Pipeline generally extends over long distances traversing through wide variety of soil conditions with different seismicity. Majority of past work mainly restricted to pipelines exposed to strike slip fault motion or transverse permanent ground deformation that too cases of pipelines under tension. The study of buried pipeline under compression is of extreme importance, especially pipelines passing through thrusting sub-continent like India, where majority of pipelines are exposed to compression. In compression pipelines fail in material as well as in geometry. In this paper past work is reviewed and 3D finite element based model is proposed to compare pipeline performance subjected to different types of ground motion. The proposed model includes material non-linearity as well as effect of large geometric changes. In this proposed model displacement control Arc-length technique is implemented to solve the nonlinear behavior. To reduce the computational time of analysis a parallelization tool kit of MATLAB is utilized.