Prescriptive Approach to Design Buried Pipelines for Permanent Ground Deformations from Liquefaction-Induced Lateral Spread Hazards

ASCE is currently developing a Manual of Practice (MOP) for the Seismic Design of Water and Wastewater Pipelines under the Pipeline Division of the Utility Engineering and Surveying Institute (UESI) in collaboration with ASCE’s Infrastructure Resilience Division (IRD). This MOP would include a prescriptive approach for seismic design of buried water and wastewater pipeline infrastructure that is potentially subjected to transient ground deformations (TGDs) and different types of permanent ground deformations (PGDs) such as those imposed by landslides, liquefaction-induced lateral spreads, and fault rupture. The work summarized in this paper pertains to an analysis framework being considered for the development of prescriptive design recommendations for PGDs from liquefaction-induced lateral spread hazards. An empirical approach based on the revised multilinear regression equations to predict lateral spread displacement has been adopted in developing the recommendations presented in these design tables, currently under consideration, for different pipeline criticality categories. This approach provides a mechanism to design water/wastewater pipelines against liquefaction-induced lateral spread hazards without undertaking significant and complex investigative, evaluative, and design efforts for certain conditions. Critical pipelines located within high lateral spread hazard regions, however, will require site-specific analysis and design. Due to space limitations, this paper focuses only on the framework used in developing the typical design tables.