Simulation of bending stress variation in long buried thick-walled pipes under the earth’s movement using combined linear dynamics and beam theories

Abstract

This study reported a simulation approach to the understanding of the interactions between a buried pipe and the soil system by computing the bending stress variation of harmonically-excited buried pipes. The established principles of linear dynamics theory and simple beam theory were utilised in the analysis of the problem of buried pipe bending stress accumulation and its dynamics. With regards to the parameters that influence the bending stress variations, the most important are the isolation factor, uniform external load, and the corresponding limiting conditions. The simulated mathematical expressions, containing static and dynamic parameters of the buried pipe and earth, were coded in Fortran programming language and applied in the simulation experiment. The results obtained showed that harmonically-excited buried thick-walled pipe became stable and effective when the ratio of the natural frequency of vibration to the forced frequency is greater than 2.0, whenever the damped factor is used as the control parameter for the maximum bending stress. The mirror image of the stress variation produces variation in the location of the maximum bending stress in quantitative terms. The acceptable pipe materials for the simulated cases must have yield strength in bending greater than or equal to 13.95 MPa. The results obtained in this work fill a gap in the literature and will be useful to pipeline engineers and designers, as well as to environmental scientists in initialising and controlling environmental issues and policy formulation concerning the influence of buried pipe on the soil and water in the environment.