Mechanical response of buried High-Density Polyethylene pipelines under normal fault motions

Permanent ground deformation is one of the most damaging hazards for continuous buried lifelines. In this paper, numerical models using a Finite Element Method (FEM) were developed to analyze the buried High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) pipelines subjected to the normal fault motions. The numerical predictions, were compared with those from ASCE Guidelines and with the experimental results obtained from geotechnical centrifuge tests. Moreover, the paper focuses on the effects of the design parameters such as, pipe diameter and thickness, pipeline burial depth, friction angle and density of the soil surrounding the pipe on the maximum bending strain as well as bending strain distribution along the pipeline. The results show that numerical models using a finite element method could produce reasonable predictions. However, the maximum predicted bending strains from the ASCE Guidelines are larger than those from experiments. The pipe deformation mechanisms are also significantly influenced by variation in burial depth, pipe surface characteristics, and backfill type.