Numerical and Experimental Investigation of the Effect of Traffic Load on the Mechanical Characteristics of HDPE Double-Wall Corrugated Pipe

Abstract

The high-density polyethylene (HDPE) double-wall corrugated pipe, which is a kind of flexible pipe, is widely used in municipal drainage networks. The characteristics of the surrounding soil and pipe bed, pipe cover depth, backfill compaction, type of pavement and pavement design, and traffic loads are some of the major factors that affect the stress and deformation of pipes. In this study, the ABAQUS 3D finite element model was used to analyze the influence of backfill compactness, traffic loads, diameter, and hoop stiffness on the mechanical characteristic of an HDPE pipe under traffic loads. A series of full-scale tests were carried out to verify the validity of the simulation results. For the conditions tested, the results showed the following: (1) the Von-Mises stress of the pipe was mainly determined by the earth pressure at the crown, and the stress caused by backfill compaction increased significantly but had a short duration and limited impact on the pipe; (2) traffic load alone had little influence on the mechanical behavior of the pipe: while under the action of the loose backfill in contact with the pipe, the pipes were more sensitive to the traffic load response; (3) the fluctuations in the Von-Mises stress of the pipe mainly depended on the magnitude and speed of the traffic load; (4) for pipes with a small diameter, non-compacted backfill easily caused stress concentration in the pipe, while the degree of backfill compaction had almost the same effect on the distribution of stress for pipes with different hoop stiffness.

Effects of Pipe Deflection and Arching on Stress Distribution and Lateral Earth Pressure Coefficient in Buried Flexible Pipes

“…Buried flexible pipes are usually modeled using plate, beam-column, or shell elements [28,[47][48][49][50]. Most researchers have preferred to use elastic material models, generally employing the secant modulus of elasticity to simplify the analyses and avoid complexity [13,47,48,51].…”

“…As the central soil prism tends to move downwards, it interacts with the surrounding soil prisms in this case, facilitating the transfer of some of the load to the adjacent soil through friction forces (Fv) (Figure 1d). This process is a phenomenon known as "positive arching" [23][24][25][26][27][28].…”

Numerical Investigation of the Short-Term Mechanical Response of Buried Profiled Thermoplastic Pipes with Different Diameters to External Loads

“…Fang et al increased the size of soil elements by reducing element nodes. Similar methods are used to deal with soil mesh in the paper [32,33]. By dividing the soil grid skillfully, the number of soil elements is reduced from 1.5 million to 220,000 per meter, and the calculation efficiency of the accurate 3D model of corrugated pipe soil is greatly improved.…”

Research on the Mechanical Behavior of Buried Double-Wall Corrugated Pipes

“…There are two directions for study of the external load of the pipes; one is the ground load including traffic load [ 11 , 12 ], collapse impact load [ 13 ], and ground circular loads [ 14 ] etc. Another direction is the effect of geology and soil layers, including seismic response [ 15 , 16 ], geotechnical loads [ 17 ], soil subsidence [ 18 , 19 ], and soil layer displacement [ 20 , 21 , 22 ], etc.…”