Pipeline Response to Loma Prieta Earthquake

Abstract

A field experiment to investigate the response of buried pipelines to lateral offsets and to traveling wave effects is currently being operated at a test site on a trace of the San Andreas Fault in central California. The experiment is located near Parkfield, California, where the U.S. Geological Survey has predicted the recurrence of a moderate earthquake within the next few years. The goal of the experiment is to develop data that can be used to qualify design and analysis methods for pipelines in seismically active areas. Welded steel and ductile iron pipeline segments are buried and instrumented adjacent to an array of survey monuments and strong motion seismographs. Although the predicted moderate earthquake on the Parkfield‐Cholame segment of the San Andreas Fault has not yet occurred, data obtained during low‐intensity shaking from the surface wave phase of the October 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake yields valuable insight into pipeline response. Close correlation is found between ground strains induced by surface wave propagation and the transient pipeline strains; coseismic lateral offset also correlates well with residual pipeline strains.