68th Canadian Geotechnical Conference and 7th Canadian Permafrost Conference

NUMERICAL MODELING OF STRESS REDUCING EFFECTS OF RIGID INCLUSIONS ABOVE BURIED FRP PIPES

Session: Transportation and Linear Infrastructure I / Transports et infrastructures linéaires I

Dahlia Hafez, Cairo University, Egypt (Canada)
Alper Turan, Geotechnique, Burlington, ON, Canada (Canada)
M. Hesham El Naggar, University of Western Ontario, Canada (Canada)

Buried fibreglass reinforced-plastic (FRP) pipes are widely used in process industry, where, they are often subjected to large hauling loads. Few traditional protection approaches are in use. The inclusion of a reinforced concrete (RC) structural element above the crown of the pipe is a commonly adopted procedure. This paper presents a series of numerical analyses that parametrically study the interaction between the FRP Pipe-Soil-Rigid Inclusion system. Finite Element (FE) stress/deformation analyses of buried FRP pipes subjected to truck loads and protected by a rigid RC slab-on-grade are performed. The effect of using a RC slab-on-grade on the deformation of pipes is investigated considering different axle loading scenarios and different RC slab widths and thicknesses. The results show that the use of a RC slab-on-grade significantly reduces pipe deformation. Increasing the width of the slab yielded better practical benefits than increasing the slab thickness.