Unified Approach to Thrust Restraint Design

The design of thrust blocks for water pipelines and sewer force mains vary from one pipe material or standard to another just like the design of pipe wall thickness. This creates tremendous confusion among consulting engineers and owners of projects. The designers and the owners have to look up Design Manual M9 for concrete pipe, Design Manual M11 for welded steel pipe, Design Manual M41 for ductile iron pipe, Design Manual M23 for PVC pipe, and Design Manual M45 for fiberglass pipe. In many countries, water pipeline materials are required to meet a common standard, where design equations are kept the same whereas material properties vary from one pipe material to another. The purpose of this paper is to start from the fundamental principles of fluid mechanics and geotechnical engineering and build the engineering know-how needed to apply the same design methodology for all pipe materials and applications. A step-by-step design methodology is presented.