Buried Pipes and Culverts

A variety of buried pipe infrastructure is needed to service the needs of our communities and resource industries for electrical, water, gas and oil supply, power development, storm-water and sanitary sewer systems, and highway and railway culverts. The conduit surrounded by soil is both loaded and supported by the earth and porewater: and geotechnical engineers are frequently called upon to provide advice regarding various design and construction issues. This chapter describes issues associated with pipe loading and load capacity, and the construction of buried pipeline infrastructure. Other chapters contain related material associated with trenchless pipe-laying technologies (Chapter 19), slope stability (Chapter 14) and frost and thermal effects (Chapter 20).