Loading of a Gravel-Buried Steel Pipe Subjected to Rockfall
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 132, Issue 11
Abstract
Increasing rockfall activity in the European Alps has raised the need for designing protection systems for Alpine infrastructure. This paper is concerned with protection of steel pipelines by a gravel overburden of height . Rockfall-induced loading of such pipes is estimated by means of a three-dimensional, quasi-static, elasto-plastic finite-element (FE) model. Maximum impact forces and corresponding penetration depths are estimated based on dimensionless formulas, related to real scale impact tests onto gravel layers. The forces are applied as surface loads onto the FE model, at a distance from the pipe. Material behavior of gravel is represented by a cap model, which is based on pressure-independent linear elasticity and associated plasticity. Related material parameters are identified from acoustic and static material tests. The structural FE model is validated by comparing FE-predicted stresses in the pipe with stresses determined in a real-scale structural experiment. This is reasonable only because the real-scale test is independent of the experiments used for identification of the material parameters used as input for the structural FE model. Satisfactory FE predictions motivate use of the FE model for estimating the loading of the steel pipe in untested scenarios, concerning, e.g., different heights of overburden, or different impact intensities. These estimates show some efficiency of gravel protection systems for modest rockfall, with impact energies well below .
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Acknowledgments
The writers are indebted to Christian Kropik for providing a computer code for the cap model (Kropik and Mang 1996), allowing for numerical simulation of the elasto-plastic behavior of gravel. Moreover, the efforts concerning realization of the impact experiments, by Oswald Steiner, Manfred Unterluggauer, and Christian Stöckl, Transalpine Ölleitung in Österreich Ges.m.b.H., by Josef Schedelberger and Hannes Mayer, Schedelberger Consulting, and by Josef Schmöllerl, Hottinger Baldwin Messtechnik GmbH, are gratefully acknowledged.
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Information
Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 132 • Issue 11 • November 2006
Pages: 1465 - 1473
Copyright
© 2006 ASCE.
History
Received: Feb 25, 2004
Accepted: May 27, 2005
Published online: Nov 1, 2006
Published in print: Nov 2006
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