Designing the cover height of buried pipelines to prevent them from buckling requires a method that can thoroughly and realistically model the phenomenon. This paper introduces a new technique to assess the risk of upheaval buckling (UHB) by using backfill soil springs (BFSS) to represent the uplift resistance provided by the backfill soil on top of a buried pipeline. This paper investigates the pre-buckling pipeline behavior related to UHB and highlights some of the key parameters governing the analysis. UHB assessment based on a case study was carried out and the results were then compared with those obtained from force-equilibrium methods generally used in the industry. The comparison shows that UHB assessment can be performed more rigorous using BFSS than using force-equilibrium methods. Therefore, using BFSS for UHB assessment improve the reliability in cover height design.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.