Stability of onshore pipelines in liquefied soils: Overview of computational methods

Abstract

One of the significant problems in the design of onshore pipelines in seismic areas is their stability in case of liquefaction. Several model tests and numerical analyses allow investigating the behavior of pipelines when the phenomenon of liquefaction occurs. While experimental tests contribute significantly toward understanding the liquefaction mechanism, they are costly to perform compared to numerical analyses; on the other hand, numerical analyses are difficult to execute, because of the complexity of the soil behavior in case of liquefaction. This paper reports an overview of the existing computational methods to evaluate the stability of onshore pipelines in liquefied soils, with particular attention to the development of excess pore water pressures and the floatation of buried structures. The review includes the illustration of the mechanism of floating and the description of the available calculation methods that are classified in static and dynamic approaches. We also highlighted recent trends in numerical analyses. Moreover, for the static condition, referring to the American Petroleum Institute (API) Specification, we computed and compared the uplift safety factors in different cases that might have a relevant practical use.