The purpose of this paper is to study the dynamic response of pipelines buried in a back-filled rectangular trench in a semi-infinite medium. The pipelines are modelled as long cylindrical shells of small thickness. Three dimensional response has been studied by using the boundary element representation and finite element method to account the effect of different pipe soil-interaction parameter as well as the arbitrary angle to the pipe-axis of either plane P or SV wave incident.

Numerical results are presented for the normal displacements, displacements along pipe-axis and the hoop stresses in the pipe wall with different pipe soil-interaction parameters. In the frequency domain, it is shown that the response depends critically on the back-filled material such as depth of embedment, trench and pipe elastic properties as well as the directions of propagation of the incident waves. The finite and boundary element models are matched by observing appropriate boundary and compatibility conditions.

purchase the full-text of this paper (price £20)

go to the previous paper
go to the next paper
return to the table of contents
return to the book description
purchase this book (price £65 +P&P)