A Novel Experimental Technique to Investigate Soil–Pipeline Interaction under Axial Loading in Saturated and Unsaturated Sands

What is it about?

A novel testing system was developed to study the performance of buried pipeline system in sand under both saturated and unsaturated conditions. The experimental results on the tested sand suggest that the measured axial force exerted on a pipe in unsaturated sand is significantly higher compared to saturated condition. The measured behavior of the prototype pipe was modelled using extending the principles of saturated and unsaturated soil mechanics. There is a good agreement with the measured experimental results and numerical method proposed in this paper. The simple approach proposed in this paper is useful for the practicing engineers in the rational design of pipelines in sands.

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