11/19/2019 Buried pipe – Neven Drobnjak

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Buried pipe
September 20, 2016 by Neven

In this blog I will discuss underground pipe stress calculation and di erent approaches
for underground pipe modeling. During pipe thermal expansion, friction force from pipe
to soil will occur resisting a pipe thermal expansion. Longitudinal forces from internal
pressure must also be taken into consideration as well as forces as from Poisson
shrinkage. At one point these forces will be balanced and that location is called virtual
anchor. Virtual anchor is the location where all forces acting on underground pipe are in
the balance resulting displacement at that point equal to zero. Please see the gure
below.

Based on Eq.1 virtual anchor length (L) can be derived and it is given by Eq.2. Please see
the gure below.

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Soil friction force is shown on the gure below.

Virtual anchor for a short pipe run (L<Lp) is located at the middle of pipe span and for
long pipe run (L>Lp) virtual anchors are located from the ends of pipe. Passive soil
pressure has been neglected, but if we take passive soil pressure into consideration
length of virtual anchor (La) will be somewhat smaller than previously calculated (L).
Please see the gure below.

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Using pipe sleeves or tunnels at the pipe elbow will eliminate passive soil pressure, which
can be economical in the case of long buried vertical pipe section or in the case of high
thermal load. Realistically, the location of virtual anchors is somewhat uncertain since
buried depth and soil friction can vary. Also, uneven cooling and heating rate will
contribute uncertainty of virtual anchor location. Now, let’s consider long pipe run shown
on the gure below.

Calculation of restrained pipe portion is shown on gure below.

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It should be noted that piping code B31.4 and piping code B31.3 has di erent approach.
By piping code B 31.4, equivalent longitudinal stress is calculated using maximum shear
equation, where hoop stress is added to longitudinal thermal stress. Calculated
equivalent longitudinal stress must be equal or less than 0.9SMYS. By piping code B 31.3
stress that comes from sustain load is equal to zero. All stresses are secondary in nature
and therefore only pipe exibility criteria must be met – displacement stress range must
be equal or less than allowable displacement stress range. Stress calculation (Liang-
Chaun Peng) for restrained pipe complying B 31.4 is shown on the attachment
‘Underground-1’ and it can be downloaded from here. In the case of railway or road
crossing external loads must be taken into consideration and stress analysis must be
conducted as per API RP 1102 (Steel pipelines crossing railroad and highways). Although
stress analysis per API RP 1102 is beyond this scope, it is worth to mention that API RP
1102 utilize Von Mises stress as failure criteria. Since restrained pipe portion is loaded
with compression, bowing of restrained pipe portion must be checked, and equations
are shown below.

Location of virtual anchor (active length) and stresses for unrestrained pipe portion can

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be calculated as per Liang-Chaun Peng method, where piping system is modeled as

guided cantilever and passive soil pressure is taken into consideration. Stress calculation
for unrestrained pipe portion complying B 31.4 is shown on attachment ‘Underground-2’
and it can be downloaded from here. Pipe stress at the elbow of 114 095 psi greatly
exceed allowable stress of 37440 psi (see Undergroung-2 attachment by Liang-Chaun
Peng). In this case, installing physical anchor will alleviate stress at the elbow. Please see
the gure below.

It is evident that the physical anchor installed at 20 feet from the vertical run will greatly
reduce end force (Q) and therefore bending stress at elbow (without stress
intensi cation factor) will be much lower than allowable stress. Liang-Chaun Peng use
approach where rst approximation is made neglecting lateral pipe movement and
second approximation is made by considering piping system as guided cantilever. These
approximations greatly simplify stress calculation and for the most cases, stress
calculation will be adequate. In the case of critical lines, sophisticated analysis is required
and more realistic pipe modeling must be made. Enhanced pipe modeling involves using
simulated soil supports with spring rate. Please see the gure below.

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In the old days calculation was carried out by program made in Fortran or another
programming language. If the calculated force (at the soil lateral restrains) is greater than
the ultimate soil resistance, than second iteration was needed taking constant force
instead of spring, since soil yield displacement is reached and soil is in plastic region.
Please see the gure below.

Caesar II has adopted the similar approach; spring supports are placed on the pipe and
stresses are calculated by balancing all forces using iterations. It should be noted that
Caesar II takes soil yield displacement as 1.5% of burial depth (same as Liang-Chaun
Peng). Below is the screenshot of the spring support placement.

Soil parameters are entered by starting buried modeler.

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Soil parameters should be obtained from soil report and the soil yield displacement
factor shall be taken 0.015 as per discussion above. Overburden compaction multiplier
(OCM) shall be taken:
1. Common Back ll (OCM=4-5)
The back ll material shall be consolidated with the wheels or tracks of
excavating equipment.
2. Compacted common back ll (OCM=6-7)
Compacted common back ll shall be placed in layers no greater than 300 mm and
each layer shall be compacted to a density equivalent of native material.
3. Compacted select granular back ll (OCM=8)
Selected granular back ll shall be placed in layer no greater than 150 mm thick
and compacted to 98% of maximum Standard Proctor Dry Density.
4. OCM smaller than 4 can be used for loose material without any compaction.
OCM greatly in uences calculated stress and having wrong values for OCM will give you
incorrect result. (Larger OMC, soil is sti er) Tutorial on utilizing Caesar II for stress
analysis of underground piping can be found on the site What is piping.

 Engineering
 Gaskets
 Pipe stress III

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