Sustainable Embedment Design of Large Diameter Pipelines

Embedment design - specifically, selection of embedment materials - is critical to the sustainable design of large-diameter pipelines. Selection of embedment materials has been a topic of special interest to the water industry for several years. It holds great potential for sustainable improvement, but it also requires detailed evaluation of the interaction between the pipe and the soil around it in order to provide adequate structural support to the pipe. The purpose of this paper is to present the sustainable characteristics of different embedment systems from a triple bottom line (TBL) perspective. The TBL analysis quantifies the economic, environmental, and social impact of each material as applied to an example project in the North Texas area. Two types of embedment systems are evaluated in this paper: ≤ Embedment Design -Type 1 consists of granular materials; and ≤ Embedment Design -Type 2 consists of controlled, low-strength materials The TBL evaluation is concluded with a presentation of results and conclusions regarding the sustainable design of embedment materials. Additional studies have been prepared by the authors regarding the sustainable characteristics of each embedment system using Envision^TM. The authors have found Envision^TM to be a practical, efficient, and comprehensive system to rate a wide range of infrastructure facilities and systems, such as water transmission systems. Due to the complexity of the evaluation and the length of the analysis, the Envision^TM rating of this North Texas example project is not presented in this paper.