Experimental Investigation of Longitudinal Bending of Buried Steel Pipes Pulled through Dense Sand

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Abstract
North America is traversed by many high-pressure oil and gas transmission pipes and the stability of that essential buried infrastructure must be maintained under a variety of earth-loading conditions. In the research reported in this paper, a series of pipe-bending experiments have been conducted on 105-mm (4.1-in.) outside diameter and 1,830-mm (6-ft) long steel pipes buried in dense sand placed in a 4,000×2,000×2,000-mm (157.5×78.7×74.7-in.) test pit. The pipe ends were pulled by two parallel cables attached to a spreader beam outside the test region, which was pulled by a hydraulic actuator. The research reported in this paper investigated burial depth-to-diameter ratios of 3, 5, and 7 as well as two horizontal extents for the soil behind the pipe distances of 3D and 9.5D. Special consideration was made to assess the influence of friction between the pulling-cables and soil. This friction is significant and may contribute about 20% of the maximum pulling load for the case of a depth-to-diamete...

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