Lateral Resistance of Buried Pipeline in c–ϕ Soil

Abstract

Lower-bound finite-element limit analysis in combination with nonlinear optimization was used to compute the lateral resistance of a pipeline buried in general cohesive-frictional soil. The failure load was presented in terms of nondimensional factors Fc and Fγ because of the components of soil cohesion and soil unit weight, respectively. The magnitudes of Fc and Fγ were found to be increasing with the increase in the value of the pipe embedment ratio and also with the increase of the internal friction angle of soil. Also, the failure patterns for different cases were examined.