Buried Pipelines Deformation Behavior in Different Soils Using Geofoam

The deformation behavior response of buried pipelines to strip loading in different types of soil using geofoam is studied in the present paper. A series of small-scale model tests is performed in a fabricated box on buried pipes sustaining the constant pipe type, pipe diameter, embedment depth, load and rate of loading. Three types of soils used in the present study as, fine-grained soil, non-plastic soil (‘ϕ’ soil) fine sand and the mixture of fine-grained soil (50%) and sand (50%). For experiments, a fabricated box setup is with transparent front glass is used to perform small-scale modeling. HDPE pipe is used having 2-inch diameter so as to represent prototype buried pipes. With the constant density and cross-sectional width of geofoam was used. Evaluation performance of the geofoam in an enhancement of deformation behavior of the buried pipe an image analysis technique is used. Universal Testing Machine (UTM) is used to applied load; a strip loading is applied with the constant load rate of 0.1 N/s. The effective solution of distressing of buried pipeline is represented. It is observed that when geofoam placed below the strip loading the buried pipe prevents the untoward effect of unexpected excessive forces. Due to this reduced the cost of the maintenance of buried pipe and decrease the losses in the system.