Strain demand prediction method for buried X80 steel pipelines crossing oblique-reverse faults

The reverse fault is a dangerous geological hazard faced by buried steel pipelines. Permanent ground deformation along the fault trace will induce large compressive strain leading to buckling failure of the pipe. A hybrid pipe-shell element based numerical model programed by INP code supported by ABAQUS solver was proposed in this study to explore the strain performance of buried X80 steel pipeline under reverse fault displacement. Accuracy of the numerical model was validated by previous full scale experimental results. Based on this model, parametric analysis was conducted to study the effects of four main kinds of parameters, e.g., pipe parameters, fault parameters, load parameter and soil property parameters, on the strain demand. Based on 2340 peak strain results of various combinations of design parameters, a semi-empirical model for strain demand prediction of X80 pipeline at reverse fault crossings was proposed. In general, reverse faults encountered by pipelines are involved in 3D oblique reverse faults, which can be considered as a combination of reverse fault and strike-slip fault. So a compressive strain demand estimation procedure for X80 pipeline crossing oblique-reverse faults was proposed by combining the presented semi-empirical model and the previous one for compression strike-slip fault (Liu 2016). Accuracy and efficiency of this proposed method was validated by fifteen design cases faced by the Second West to East Gas pipeline. The proposed method can be directly applied to the strain based design of X80 steel pipeline crossing oblique-reverse faults, with much higher efficiency than common numerical models.