Buried Pipeline Subjected to Underground Blast Load: Closed-Form Analytical Solution

Abstract

The current study derives a closed-form analytical solution of buried pipeline subjected to underground blast load. The solution is derived considering Euler Bernoulli’s beam resting on viscoelastic foundation. In viscoelastic foundation, shear interactions between individual Winkler springs are considered. Soil pressure on the pipeline resulting from the self-weight of the soil above the buried pipeline is also incorporated in the present analysis. The finite sine–Fourier transform is employed to obtain the solution for the governing differential equation. The proposed formulation is validated with the results obtained from the past centrifuge model test, finite-element-based three-dimensional (3D) numerical analysis and simplified analytical study. Further, a parametric study is performed to obtain the impact of trinitrotoluene (TNT) charge weight, standoff distance, damping ratio, and flexural rigidity of the pipe-on-pipe response. From the results of the parametric study, it is noticed that peak pipe deformation increases with increasing the TNT charge weight and decreases with increasing the magnitude of standoff distance, damping ratio, and flexural rigidity of the pipe. The proposed formulation can be adopted in the initial design stage for rapid estimation of buried pipe responses subjected to underground blast load.