Numerical Modeling of the Annular Failure Pressure during HDD in Noncohesive Soils
Publication: Journal of Pipeline Systems Engineering and Practice
Volume 11, Issue 2
Abstract
One of the critical issues that engineers, contractors, and owners encounter during horizontal directional drilling (HDD) is inadvertent return of drilling fluid (frac-out or hydraulic fracture) to the ground surface when the annular pressure in the borehole exceeds the yield shear or tensile strength of the soil. In this study, numerical modeling using ABAQUS software (version 6.13) was employed to estimate the failure pressure in several case studies following the limit pressure solution. In the next step, a large-strain cavity expansion solution was used to estimate the failure pressure, which was then compared to the estimations based on numerical modeling following the limit pressure solution. A parametric study using numerical modeling was conducted to examine the influence of the geotechnical parameters of the soil medium on the limit pressure. The parametric study showed that overburden depth, friction angle, and elastic modulus of the soil have a significant impact on the limit pressure. The ratio of limit pressure according to analytical and numerical solution resulted in coefficients of limit pressure in different geotechnical conditions and can be used to estimate the failure pressure in noncohesive soils using the large-strain cavity expansion solution.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada for providing financial support for this research study. They also would like to extend appreciation to the Consortium for Engineered Trenchless Technologies (CETT) at the University of Alberta for providing this research opportunity and Ms. Sheena Moore and Lana Gutwin at CETT for their editorial assistance in this paper.
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Published In
Journal of Pipeline Systems Engineering and Practice
Volume 11 • Issue 2 • May 2020
Copyright
©2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 30, 2018
Accepted: Aug 20, 2019
Published online: Jan 22, 2020
Published in print: May 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Jun 22, 2020
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