Effect of Soil Failure on Soil‐Steel Structures

Abstract

A plane‐strain finite element analysis procedure is used to investigate the interaction of soil failure and conduit instability in soil‐steel structures. Beam‐column elements, interface elements, constant strain and linear strain soil elements are used to simulate the combined soil‐steel structure. Hyperbolic models are employed for the interface elements and for the soil elements remote from the conduit; the beam elements can accommodate plastic hinge formation. An elasto‐plastic soil model represents the soil behavior in the severely stressed regions. A series of laboratory tests were conducted on a model conduit and reasonable agreement is noticed between the experimental and analytical results. The experimental and theoretical investigations clearly indicated the significant effect of the soil failure on the load carrying capacity of the soilsteel structure.