A refined seismic analysis and design of buried pipeline for fault movement

Some lifelines, such as gas and oil transmission lines and water and sewer pipelines, have been damaged in recent earthquakes. The damages of these lifelines may cause major, catastrophic disruption of essential services for human needs. Large abrupt differential ground movements that result from an active fault present one of the most severe effects of an earthquake on a buried pipeline system. Although simplified analysis procedures for buried pipelines across strike-slip fault zones that cause tensile failure of the pipeline have been proposed, the results are not accurate enough because of several assumptions involved, such as the omission of flexural rigidity of the pipe, simplification of soil resistant characteristics, etc. Note that the omission of flexural rigidity cannot satisfy equilibrium conditions for pipelines across a ‘reverse’ strike-slip fault that causes compressions in the pipeline. This paper presents a refined analysis procedure for buried pipelines that is applicable to both strike-slip and reverse strikeslip faults after modifying some of the assumptions used previously. Based on the analytical results, this paper also discusses the design criteria for buried pipelines which are subjected to various fault movements. Parametric responses of buried pipeline for various fault movements, angles of crossing, buried depths and pipe diameters are presented.