Engineering Structures 194 (2019) 251–261

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Engineering Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/engstruct

Loads bearing mechanism of steel bifurcation combined with concrete T

anchor block
⁎
Kai Sua, , Hong-Ze Zhua, Yi-An Shib, Yuan-Ji Weia, He-Gao Wua, Chang-Zheng Shia
a
State Key Laboratory of Water Resources and Hydropo wer Engineering Science, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
b
China Construction Sixth Engineering Division Corp., Ltd, Tianjin 300450, China

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Bifurcations are employed when two or more branch pipes are merged into one main pipe, which generally
Pipelines located upstream of the powerhouse and embedded in surrounding media. A three dimension (3D) numerical
Bifurcation model for the symmetrical Y-shape steel bifurcation with crescent rib embedded in in-situ cast concrete anchor
Concrete anchor block block is developed, in which the water head is as high as 652 m. Then, by means of the point-to-point contact
Numerical analysis
element of CONTAC52 simulating the initial gap between steel pipe and concrete, the resulting distribution of
Initial gap
Loads bearing ratio
stress, settlement of bedrock are revealed. Further, a novel method to calculate the load bearing ratio of the
concrete anchor block is proposed to evaluate the load-bearing capability of the surrounding concrete. Further,
this study also discusses the effects of the initial gap, the concrete elastic modulus and the deformation modulus
of the bedrock. The results demonstrate adequate rebar should be arranged to ensure the integrity of the anchor
block and to limit the crack widths. The design criteria of reinforced concrete penstock are suggested for the
detailed design of embedded bifurcations to simplify the construction process, to reduce the steel thickness of the
steel bifurcation and the amount of investment.

1. Introduction bifurcations [12]. Under the common load combination of internal

Some types of hydraulic pipe such as sewage pipes, shafts, tunnels,
and penstocks generally have large diameters (can be greater than
10 m). Most linings are constructed by media of polymers, reinforced
concrete and steel [1,2]. In most practical applications, liners of poly-
meric are usually employed to rehabilitate damaged pipes and drain
polluted water [3,4], while concrete linings reinforced by steel bars
normally are used for hydraulic tunnels with lower water pressure [5],
whereas welded steel liners are applied in large section shafts and
tunnels namely penstocks under considerable water pressure [6–10]. In
this study, the primary focus was limited to the most commonly used
pipe consisting of welded steel segments, which plays a critical role in
the normal operation of hydropower stations.
Bifurcations are often employed upstream of the power station
houses, when one main pipe supplies two and more branch pipes
[11,12] as shown in Fig. 1. In most cases, the bifurcations are em-
bedded in the surrounding rock or in-situ cast concrete anchor block.
Affected by many factors, such as the opening gap between steel and
concrete, the surrounding concrete elastic modulus and the bedrock
deformation modulus, the embedded bifurcations have presented dis-
tinguished deformation and stresses against the exposed-to-air
water pressure, structure self-weight and so on, the deformation and
stresses are particularly complex, thus, none of the traditional analy-
tical methods can present the actual situation.
Due to the lack of robust analytical methods, as a rule, the em-
bedded bifurcations used to be designed under the accordance scheme
for the exposed-to-air penstock [12,13] in which internal water pres-
sure is designed to be undertaken only by the steel pipe, although the
pipe is embedded in the surrounding rock or reinforced concrete. Be-
sides, performing an indoor experiment to identify the load-bearing
capacity of the steel bifurcation, as can be illustrated in Fig. 2a, requires
high capital and time costs. Meanwhile, due to the constraint of the
model size limited by the laboratory space and experimental devices,
almost all indoor experiments cannot be conducted on a large scale for
a better simulation result, which brings inevitable deviations from en-
gineering practices. Then, numerical simulation with the aid of robust
computers and public-released software has become a common choice
to examine the safety of embedded bifurcation, see Fig. 2b. With the FE
analysis method, many works have been conducted to study the thin-
walled cylindrical pipe structures and embedded steel bifurcation in
some aspects, Liu et al. [14] carried out failure analysis of thin-walled
steel pipeline under deflection load, Salahifar R et al. [15] developed a

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: suker8044@163.com (K. Su).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2019.05.065
Received 22 October 2018; Received in revised form 22 May 2019; Accepted 22 May 2019
Available online 28 May 2019
0141-0296/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
K. Su, et al.
Fig. 1. Location and layout of bifurcation in Chai-Shi-Tan hydropower station
of PR China.
cylindrical super-convergent finite element for the steady state analysis
under general harmonic forces, Zhong et al. [16] studied the interaction
between underground steel distributor and surrounding rock, Ding
et al. [17] studied the bearing mechanism of underground steel bi-
furcation, Su et al. [18] studied the mechanical characteristics and
shape optimization method of rib of embedded crescent-rib steel bi-
furcation pipe.
What is more, higher strength steel and thicker steel liner are re-
quired to cope with higher H × D, namely the internal water head (H)
multiplied by penstock diameter (D) [19]. When construction difficul-
ties arising from higher strength steel and thicker liner grow upon the
present level of steel welding and rolling, the surrounding media is
required to share H × D with the steel pipe. Many well-documented
studies showed that the initial gap along the pipeline and concrete
elastic modulus, as well as the surrounding rock deformation modulus,
have significant influence on the combined load-bearing capacity be-
tween steel and surrounding media [20–23].
The overview of the project and the introduction of the numerical
model are presented in sequent content. Then, a novel method to verify
the concrete load-bearing capacity is proposed after analyzing the steel
stresses, surrounding concrete stresses, and settlement of bedrock.
Furthermore, a series of numerical solutions are discussed to evaluate
the influence arising from the initial gap, the elastic modulus of sur-
rounding concrete and the bedrock deformation modulus. Finally, the
conclusions are presented along with some suggestions for the detailed
design of the embedded bifurcation.
2. Background and numerical modeling
2.1. Engineering practice
The engineering practice in this study is Ji-Sha hydropower station
(HS), which is a medium-sized project and located in the southwest of
China, as shown in Fig. 3. Ji-Sha HS contains two Francis hydraulic
turbine generator units, each one has the capacity of 60 MW. A high-
pressure bifurcation, with the designed internal water head of 652 m, is
embedded in an in-situ cast concrete anchor block and placed at ap-
proximately 38 m upstream away from the center line of the power-
house. Moreover, the profile of the high-pressure pipeline of Ji-Sha HS
is shown in Fig. 4, comprising of three horizontal segments and three
inclined segments.
In view of the pipe velocity, the average value of the main pipe with
a diameter of 2.3 m is 6.92 m/s while the branches with a diameter of
1.4 m are 7.89 m/s. In addition, a structural joint incorporating a soft
layer located along the outer surface of the main pipe has been em-
ployed to reduce the non-uniform settlement between the upstream
main pipe and embedded bifurcation, while other soft layers are also
252
Engineering Structures 194 (2019) 251–261
laid around the pipe when it runs across the concrete joints (see Fig. 4).
The steel bifurcation with inner crescent rib is primarily designed in
a symmetrical Y-shape layout with the angle of 70° and constructed by
the welded 07MnCrMoVR steel with the yielding point of 490 MPa [24]
as illustrated in Fig. 5.
Specifically, the main body part of the bifurcation consists of three
basic cones of A1, B1, and C1 and three transition cones of A2, B2, and
C2 located between the basic cones and the cylinder pipes, respectively.
And the thickness of steel bifurcation varies in those different parts,
with the maximum thickness being 46 mm in basic cones A1, B1, and
C1, the transition part of the main pipe A2 is 42 mm while branch-pipes
parts B2, C2 are 38 mm. The strengthened crescent steel rib has the
inner profile with a parabola curve and the thickness of 112 mm, of
which details can be found in Fig. 6.
2.2. Numerical model
In this paper, the 3D finite element (FE) model was employed via
ANSYS 10.0-64bit—a FE software program [25], in which 8-node solid
element Solid45 was used so as to simulate all parts except the steel
bifurcation with crescent rib that is actually simulated by the 4-node
spatial shell element Shell63. Avoiding the influence of the stress con-
centration around the pipe with circular section and the unnecessary
boundary effect, the scope of 6 times diameter of the main pipe in the
horizontal direction was employed as well as in upstream-to-down-
stream direction.
A cartesian coordinate system located at the center of the cross
section at point O is adopted in this study, in which X axis is horizontal
direction with the downstream as the positive direction, Z axis is a
vertical direction along upward as the positive direction. Furthermore,
the pipes were meshed first within the average element width of no
more than 0.2 m or about 0.2 times the radius of the main pipe along
the circumferential direction and length less than 0.5 m in basic cones,
then the surrounding rock was meshed with greater size but still less
than twice the diameter of the main pipe (2.3 m). As a result, the total
number of shell elements in this model is 1542 while for the in-situ cast
concrete, the upstream surrounding rock mass, and bedrock it is 9809,
6015 and 7671, respectively. Especially, there are 1606 contact element
based on the current mesh refinement. Specific division result is shown
in Fig. 7.
In this study, normal displacement constraints were applied to all
surfaces of the bedrock model except the top, and the anchor block
concrete has the coincide nodes with the bedrock without other addi-
tional constraints. The concrete and rock mass are idealized as homo-
geneous, isotropic and linear elastic materials, the linear elastic and
perfectly plastic model is employed to simulate the behavior of steel.
Specific material parameters of surrounding concrete and pipe steel and
the bedding layer are given in Table 1, in which the strength of concrete
is referred to the 28 days strength [26].
Soft bedding layers with a thickness of 2 cm are paved along the
pipe outer surface at construction joints. A circular layer of concrete
C20 with a 60 cm thickness is poured around the bifurcation after the
steel liner is fixed upon the ground. Then, the rest of the anchor block,
made of concrete C15, is constructed along the out surface of the main
pipe and embedded in the rock mass. The surrounding rock mass and
bedrock of the anchor block are classified as limestone IV and slate IV,
respectively. These material parameters are shown in Table 2. (Based
on the Standard for Engineering Classification of Rock Mass from the
People’s Republic of China [27].)
2.3. Solution conditions
(1) It is assumed that the settlement deformation and consolidation of
the bedrock under self-weights, underground pore water pressure,
slope excavation loads and so on have completed before the con-
struction of the bifurcation and the anchor block. Thus, the
K. Su, et al. Engineering Structures 194 (2019) 251–261

Fig. 2. Research models for bifurcations: (a) indoor experiment model for the bifurcation in Chai-Shi-Tan hydropower station of PR China, (b) numerical model for
the bifurcation in Delsi-Tanisagua hydropower station of Ecuador, designed and constructed by PR China.

surrounding rock, bedrock, and layer have densities of null during placement in horizontal and low-gradient pipeline construction,
the simulation in this study. due to concrete shrinkage and temperature differences, inadequate
(2) Within concrete pouring and hardening, a large amount of heat is and uneven filling usually happened at the bottom and top of steel
released, which causes steel pipes to expand. During concrete pipe’s outside surface [28], where needs backfill grouting first then

Fig. 3. Layout of Ji-Sha HS, located in the southwest of PR China.

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K. Su, et al.
Fig. 4. Profile of the high-pressure pipeline and the bifurcation of Ji-Sha HS: (a) the layout of Ji-Sha HS water delivery system, (b) section view from the right along
the pipe axis, (c) sectional view from the top along the main pipe axis.
Fig. 5. Live photos of steel rib for bifurcation: (a) inside view, (b) outside view; (c) complete bifurcation.
contact grouting under decent pressure—has been suggesting and
demanding no less than 0.2 MPa in the Chinese engineering speci-
fication [29]—to cover the initial gap between the steel and the
concrete.
Different from the straight pipe, because of the structural com-
plexity and many factors affecting the quality of wrapped concrete, the
bifurcation pipe gap value is more sensitive and unpredictable which
realistically varies from 0 to 0.001 times of radius [28](ASCE Manual &
Report No.79). It’s advisable to select a value not less than 0.0004 times
the main pipe radius to restrain the infection of concrete [30]. In this
study, the complexity of the formation, the distribution of the initial
gap and the lack of on-site measured data are neglected, the initial
radial gap with 0.575 mm, that is, 0.0005 times the bifurcation’s radius
[28,31,32] between steel and concrete is idealized to be uniformly
distributed along the outer surface of the penstock, which is a medium
value among most engineering practices of PR China, as illustrated in
Fig. 8.
(3) Since the interaction between the steel pipe and the internal water
flow is beyond this study’s scope, the internal water pressure of
652 m is idealized as being uniformly distributed along the inner
surface of the pipeline, also the impact force and unbalanced force
caused by the water flow are not considered. Moreover, the dead
weight of the steel pipe and the concrete anchor block is applied to
the 3D FE model.
(4) The gap is modeled by the spatial point-point contact element of
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Engineering Structures 194 (2019) 251–261
CONTAC52 in ANSYS [25], which is capable of supporting only
compression in the direction normal to the surfaces and shear
(Coulomb friction) in the tangential direction, as shown in Fig. 9
[33]. The element is defined by two nodes, I and J (I is located on
the surface of bifurcation, J is located at the distance of the gap in
the normal direction of the former), two stiffness (the normal
stiffness, KN, and the sticking stiffness, KS) and an initial gap. In
the outset, the internal surface moves forward due to a force Pn and
will cross through the stationary outer surface as it does not exist;
when the inner one contacts the outer, a spring force developed
from the normal stiffness Kn will prevent further movement. It
means before the initial gap selected as 0.575 mm is fulfilled by the
steel deformation, the pipe internal water pressure is born only by
the steel liner.
The pure penalty method was applied as the contact algorithms in
this element, where the Newton-Raphson load vector is,
⎧ Fn ⎫
⎪ Fsy ⎪
⎪ ⎪
⎪ Fsz ⎪
{Fenr } =
⎨ −Fn ⎬
⎪ −Fsy ⎪
⎪ ⎪
⎪ −Fsz ⎪ (1)
⎩ ⎭
where Fn informs the normal contact force; Fsy , as well as Fsz , is a
tangential contact force in the Y direction and Z direction, respectively.
K. Su, et al. Engineering Structures 194 (2019) 251–261

Fig. 6. Draft of the bifurcation with thickness t = 46 mm at basic cones of A1, B1 and C1, with t = 42 mm at cone A2, and t = 38 mm at cones B2 and C2: (a)
bifurcation draft, (b) right view of steel rib, and (c) horizontal sectional view of steel rib.

In addition, if the contact gap size, Un is positive, Fn is always zero, E

which means normal force can only be transmitted when the steel and
Kni = ∫A
i L
(i = 1, 2, 3⋯N )
(4)
concrete are in contact. As well, if not, Fn can be calculated as the
where E is the elastic modulus of the softer material in contact, L refers
normal stiffness multiplied by Un . That is,
to the length or height of the element in contact, Ai is the control area
0 if Un > 0 of each node that gained by the specified command in ANSYS. And N is
Fn = ⎧ the total number of contact nodes. In the actual calculation, since the
⎩ Kn Un if Un ≤ 0
⎨ (2)
finite element model discretizes the surface into several points, the
stiffness value of each node Kni is taken as the sum of the stiffness in its
The tangential force in Y or Z direction is associated with the con-
control area, and is generally suggested to varies from 0.01 to 100 times
tact state, which can be presented as Eq. (3).
stiffness value of the softer one in ANSYS manual [34–36].
If Kni is too great, the calculation results usually are difficult to
⎧ Ks Uy if Fsy2 + Fsz2 − μFn < 0 (sticking ) converge or will oscillate, on the contrary, the results will not accu-
Fsy =
⎨ μK U if Fsy2 + Fsz2 − μFn = 0 (sliding ) rately represent the real behavior of the system if too small. In this
⎩ n n (3) study, the current average proportion S (S = Ai ) is from 0.038 to 1.053
L
in key parts.
where Uy refers to the contact slip distance in Y direction; μ is the
In addition, the coefficient of friction is commonly varied from 0.2
coefficient of friction. If the interface is closed and sticking, Fsy depends
to 0.6 [37,38], in this study, the value of μ is 0.25.
on the tangential stiffness and Y-direction slip distance, otherwise μFn is
In summary, because of the unpredictability of the gap changes, the
used for the sliding resistance.
calculation of this numerical modal has become a nonlinear contact
It should be noted that mesh density has a certain influence on
problem, even if the rock mass and concrete are both linear elastic
normal stiffness which is indicated as Eq. (4).
parameters and the deformation still belongs to small-range

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K. Su, et al. Engineering Structures 194 (2019) 251–261

Fig. 7. Numerical model: (a) whole model grid, (b) embedded bifurcation with concrete anchor block, (c) top view of bifurcation grid with gauge points A – H and O,
(d) downstream view of bifurcation grid with steel rib, and (e) cross-sectional view of internal water pressure distribution in main pipe and branch pipe.

deformation. Table 2
Material parameters of surrounding rock and bedrock.
Rock type and classification Deformation modulus/GPa Poisson ratio
3. Bifurcation stresses and settlement
Limestone, IV 4.0 0.30
3.1. Steel stresses Slate, IV 1.0 0.32

As presented in Fig. 10, in addition to the stress concentration at the

downstream boundary of the branch pipes, a high Mises stress of
200 MPa is generated at the construction joint. And the critical parts of
the bifurcation including the basic cones and the transition cones have
medium Mises stress below half of design strength of the 07MnCrMoVR
steel, 490 MPa, which means that the excessive safety factor and cost
occurred during the preliminary design. Meanwhile, the maximum of
Mises stress generated at the crescent steel rib is 84.522 MPa, which
shows that other steel with lower strength around 200 MPa can be used
instead of the 07MnCrMoVR steel.

3.2. Concrete stresses

As can be seen from Fig. 11, a large zone of tensile stress arose in the
anchor block under the inter water pressure and gravity. And the
maximum principal stress has reached 8.137 MPa, much higher than
the permissible design tensile strength of C20 and C15. In engineering
practice, the surrounding concrete should be reinforced by steel bar
under the similar condition with larger tensile zone and stresses. Ade-
quate emphasis should be placed on the lower load-bearing capacity of
steel and concrete as the crack could be initiated in reality.
Fig. 8. Initial gap values of engineering practices (divided by the main pipe
radius).
3.3. Settlement of bedrock
As indicated in Fig. 12, the settlement of the anchor block under
dead weight load exhibits apparent non-uniformity. The displacement

Table 1
Material parameters of concrete, steel and bedding layer.
Material Elastic modulus/GPa Poisson ratio Unit weight/kN/m3 Design tensile strength/MPa Design compressive strength/MPa

Liner steel/07MnCrMoVR 206 0.30 78.5 410 410

Concrete C15 22 0.167 25.0 0.9 7.5
Concrete C20 25.5 0.167 25.0 1.1 10
Bedding layer 0.002 0.32 – – –

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K. Su, et al. Engineering Structures 194 (2019) 251–261

Fig. 9. Contact element mechanism: (a) under the force Pn inner surface moves through the outer in the beginning and (b) after contact, the spring force generated by
interface stiffness Kn prevents the inner surface from moving further.

is approximately 0.754 mm at the upstream face of the anchor block

while it is 1.697 mm at the downstream section. The differential set-
tlement of 0.943 mm between the upstream and the downstream is
about 55.6% of the total displacement at the downstream.

4. Discussion

Through the combination of the value of initial gap selected as

0.575 mm or 0 mm (null) and the concrete elastic modulus chose from
25.5 GPa, 2.55 GPa, 0.255 GPa, the influence of concrete quality and
integrity on bearing capability of the structure was discussed via six
schemes, as listed in Table 3. Moreover, no condition is given to the
cracking of concrete due to excessive tensile force during the rise of
internal water pressure. At the same time, although the normal and
tangential stiffness specified in different cases, these variable are all
based on the concrete elastic modulus E.
It’s clear that the initial gap, as well as concrete elastic modulus, has
a significant influence on bifurcation deformation and stresses. For
when the exposed-penstock design scheme is adopted for such steel
bifurcations embedded in a concrete anchor block, the needless con-
struction cost and excessive safety factor will arise regardless of the
bearing ability of surrounding medium.
4.1. Influence on steel stresses
As it is observed in Fig. 13, in contrast to Case 1, Case 3 and Case 5
where the initial gap is null, the stresses of the bifurcation increase to
varying degrees under different concrete elastic modulus when the in-
itial gap is 0.575 mm in Case 2, Case 4 and Case 6. In particular, the
Mises stresses of the Points B – G increase significantly by a range of
60–90 MPa from Case 1 to Case 2, with an increment of 8–30 MPa from
Case 3 to Case 4 and from Case 5 to Case 6. Further, it can be noted that
the discrepancy of the position H is obviously less than other zones
Fig. 11. Maximum principal stress of the lower anchor block concrete.
because the initial gap at point H is assumed null with fulfilled con-
crete.
Under the internal water pressure, the anchor block concrete will
crack when the tensile stresses exceed the concrete permissible design
tensile strength, possibly affecting the load-bearing capabilities be-
tween steel and concrete. Therefore, the stresses are comparatively
analyzed under different concrete elastic modulus regarding the
varying concrete quality and integrity; the calculation results at these
points of the pipe are shown in Fig. 14. For Case 1, the stresses at all the
feature points of the bifurcation are approximately 50 MPa. For case 3,
the stresses reach approximately 120 MPa. For case 5, the stresses are
found to be consistently 8–16 MPa higher than case 3. Regarding the
initial gap of 0.0575 mm, the influence of the concrete elastic modulus
is also distinct with an increment ranging 5–30 MPa from Case 2 to Case

Fig. 10. Steel Mises stresses: (a) pipeline and (b) steel rib.

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K. Su, et al. Engineering Structures 194 (2019) 251–261

4.2. Bearing ratios of concrete

Generally, the size and shape of the anchor block are designed to
maintain its stability against sliding and overturning. However, the
impressive tensile stresses of the concrete often result in large-scale
cracking under high internal water pressure. Thus, the anchor block
concrete can be slightly reinforced to guarantee the adequate integrity
of concrete by limiting the crack width. Constrained by the reinforce-
ment, the concrete anchor block will certainly share the internal water
pressure with steel pipes. In order to evaluate the bearing mechanism,
the bearing ratio is defined as the ratio of the difference of the cir-
cumferential stresses between the exposed-to-air scheme and embedded
scheme to the former one [40,41].

σ0 − σ
P= × 100%
σ0 (5)

Fig. 12. Settlement of the concrete anchor block. where σ0 and σ are the circumferential stresses of bifurcation under the
exposed-to-air scheme and embedded scheme, respectively. The coef-
Table 3 ficient, P, is the load bearing ratio of concrete.
Solution schemes. According to the six cases listed in Table 3, the load bearing ratios at
feature points B – G are calculated and plotted, in Fig. 15. For Case 1,
Scheme Initial gap value/mm Concrete elastic modulus used/GPa
the average bearing ratio of concrete is 66.0% while for Case 2 it is
Case 1 Null 25.50 22.7%, for Case 3 around 17.9%, for Case 4 about 11.2%. When the
Case 2 0.575 25.50 elastic modulus decreased to 0.01 times the original value, the average
Case 3 Null 2.55
bearing ratio is approximately 16.1% in Case 5 and 6.5% in Case 6.
Case 4 0.575 2.55
Case 5 Null 0.255 It can be found that the anchor block concrete can bear about 6.5%
Case 6 0.575 0.255 of the internal water pressure in Case 6, from the above results. The
results indicate that it is completely feasible to employ the surrounding
concrete to share water pressure with steel pipes for detailed design,
4 and Case 6. In special, the maximum Mises stresses appearing in Case which could be verified adequate lower than other engineering prac-
6 is no greater than 200 MPa which is approximately 30 MPa less than tices illustrated in Fig. 16.
in exposed penstock [39]. As a consequence, a conclusion can be Moreover, compared with the pipe embedded in the surrounding
achieved that there is an excessive safety factor for preliminary design rock, restricted by the excavated boundary, the construction space for
regardless of the load-bearing capacity of the outer wrapped concrete. the pipe embedded in cast-in-place concrete could be more adequate
under feasible construction planning and organization. Further, the in-
situ cast concrete could be fully vibrated to ensure the compactness of
the concrete and reduce the construction gap around the bifurcation.

Fig. 13. Influence of initial gap on steel stresses, (a) Case 1 VS Case 2, (b) Case 3 VS Case 4, and (c) Case 5 VS Case 6.

258
K. Su, et al. Engineering Structures 194 (2019) 251–261

Fig. 14. Influence of the concrete elastic modulus on the bifurcation stress: (a) Case 1 VS Case 3 and Case 5 and (b) Case 2 VS Case 4 and Case 6.

Fig. 15. Bearing ratios of the anchor block concrete for Case 1 – Case 6.

Thus, this type of penstock can be designed with reference to the design
criteria of the steel lined reinforced concrete penstocks to reduce the
wall thickness of the steel pipe [20,21,42]. The bearing ratios of con-
crete and steel to bear the internal water pressure will be determined
under more quantitative analysis in the following work.
4.3. Influence of the bedrock deformation modulus
The differential settlement between the upstream and the down-
stream has a distinct influence on the Mises stresses of the bifurcation.
Fig. 17. Influence of the bedding rock deformation modulus (Ebr) on the steel
bifurcation stresses.
Fig. 17 shows the Mises stresses of the bifurcation arising from a unique
load of self-weights of the concrete anchor block and the pipe. And the
stresses at point A are much higher than other points as the construction
joint located around point A. This stress value decreases from
18.34 MPa to 11.62 MPa when the bedrock deformation modulus in-
creases from 0.6 GPa up to 1.0 GPa. It demonstrates that the stress of
point A is most sensitive to the bedrock deformation modulus.
As presented in Table 4, both the total value and the differential of

Fig. 16. Bearing ratios of the anchor block concrete in Case 6 against other engineering practices.

259
K. Su, et al.
Table 4
Settlement of the Anchor Block with Different Deformation Modulus of the Bedrock.
Deformation modulus of bedrock/GPa Settlement/mm
Upstream/mm Downstream/mm
1.0 0.754 1.697
0.8 0.909 2.046
0.6 1.157 2.603
the settlement increased when the bedrock deformation modulus de-
creased. The settlement at the upstream (downstream) face of the an-
chor block has gradually increased to 0.754 (1.697) mm, 0.909 (2.046)
mm, and 1.157 (2.603) mm, respectively, when the bedrock deforma-
tion modulus decreased from 1.0 GPa to 0.8 GPa and 0.6 GPa. In addi-
tion, the differential settlements have gradually increased to values of
0.943 mm, 1.137 mm, and 1.446 mm when 1.0 GPa, 0.8 GPa, and
0.6 GPa, respectively. However, the degree of uneven settlement (the
differential settlement divided by the total settlement) keeps nearly
constant at approximately 55.6%.
5. Conclusions
The bifurcation structure in hydraulic engineering, with complex
geometry, will undergo complicated working conditions. A 3D FE
model of the bifurcation embedded in an in-situ cast concrete anchor
block was employed in this study to analyze the load bearing me-
chanism of the bifurcation. In addition, a novel method is proposed to
calculate the bearing ratio of the surrounding concrete against the ex-
posed-to-air penstock. The following conclusions can be obtained in this
study.
(1) It is not economical to adopt the exposed-to-air penstock design
scheme for the pipe embedded in the concrete as the reinforced
anchor block can share the internal water pressure with steel, re-
sulting in lower strength steel and much thinner steel liner.
(2) The initial gap between steel and concrete as well as the concrete
elastic modulus has a great influence on the stresses of the bi-
furcation. Thus, it is necessary to fully guarantee the construction
quality of concrete to reduce the gap and enhance the quality of
concrete.
(3) Given that the compactness of concrete can be guaranteed and the
construction gap around bifurcation can be minimized under ade-
quate grouting, the reinforced anchor block concrete can bear in-
ternal water pressure loads well with the steel bifurcation, simpli-
fying the bifurcation construction and minimizing the project
investment.
Acknowledgments
This study was supported by the National Key Research and
Development Program of China (No. 2016YFC0401803), the National
Natural Science Fund Council of China (Nos. 51879207 and 51579194)
and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of
China (No. 2042017kf0202).
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