Static and Seismic Performance of Buried Pipelines: A review

Today, buried pipes can be considered one of the main substantial infrastructures which has significant role with human life. Such projects serve purposes, including, drain lines, water mains, sewage lines, telephone and electrical conduits, highway and railway culverts, gas and liquid-petroleum lines, coal slurry lines, subway tunnels and various other special functions. This paper focuses on reviewing, describing and understanding the static and dynamic behavior of underground pipes during earthquake events and at rest condition involving seismic vulnerability causes, failure modes of pipelines and loads subjected on pipes. A quick glance on the assisting factors that reduce the pipes breakage due to earthquakes is presented. Also, this paper reviews some previous studies about performance of underground pipes under seismic loads. It was concluded that the soil density has a significant impact on the displacements corresponding to the maximum force. For shallow pipes to obtain the minimum lateral displacement value, it is recommended to use soil density medium to dense state. It was observed also there is a relationship between the spacing of pipes and its displacement so; to obtain the minimum displacement the spacing between the pipes must be at least equal to the pipe diameter.