Behavior of Buried Concrete Pipe

Abstract

The principles of soil-structure interaction, facilitated by the advent of high speed digital computers and the finite element method, have been applied to develop a mathematical model that is used to analyze the behavior of concrete pipe buried in a soil mass. The material properties of both components (soil and pipe) and the construction sequence have been incorporated in the analysis in a reasonably realistic manner, and calculated results for eight different field installations (two at East Liberty, Ohio, and six at Mountainhouse Creek, Calif.) are compared with measured field behavior. Primary emphasis is given to the stress distribution at the soil-pipe interface and the diameter changes that occur, because experimental information on these response parameters is available from all eight installations; however, some attention is given to the stresses and strains in the soil immediately adjacent to the pipes at the East Liberty installations.