A Study of the Influence of Friction Forces on the Transmission of Soil Vibration on Gas Pipelines

Abstract

The article presents the influence of friction force values during the contact of a gas pipeline with sand pack on the transmission of soil vibrations on a tested pipe section. Field experiments were carried out on standard gas pipeline insulations subjected to dynamic interactions. The load sources comprised artificially generated soil vibrations with an impulsive character. Within the course of experiments, soil and pipe vibration acceleration signals were registered for different values of friction forces in its contact with the soil. The value of friction forces being a variable parameter during experiments were applied by the change of values of the tension static force of the gas pipeline section. The analysis of the registered soil and pipe vibration acceleration signals were conducted based on the time-domain signal decomposition method, Hilbert-Huang Transform (HHT). This method enables one to decompose the non-stationary vibration acceleration signal into narrowband components. For each component, a course of instantaneous values for frequency and amplitude was specified. The dependence of the pipe vibration acceleration amplitude on the pipe tensile force and friction force of the pipe in the contact with the soil was demonstrated.