Elastoplastic Solution for Soil-Pipe-Tunnel Interaction

Abstract

Solutions for the problem of tunneling effects on existing pipelines are given. The solution utilizes a boundary integral formulation for describing the elastic continuum, in conjunction with a limiting force to consider relative pullout failure. The solution requires estimation of soil and pipe elastic properties, relative pipe-soil uplift capacity, and the green field soil settlement profile given in the current paper as a modified Gaussian curve. Normalized graphs for the solution are given as a function of these input parameters. The solution method is compared and evaluated against a limited number of finite-element analysis.