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EVALUATION OF NUMERICAL MODELING OF BURIED CONDUITS
Abstract
A critical evaluation of numerical modeling of buried conduit installations was undertaken in this study to establish suitable criteria for application of such modeling to the design and analysis of buried conduits. It has been shown that current design of buried conduits has been based upon either empirical methods developed from observing the performance of previous conduits, or theoretical analyses founded on simplifying assumptions concerning the behavior of conduits and backfills. However, such methods generally have led to conservatism in design and are incapable of considering new situations or such effects as nonhomogeneous soil conditions and incremental construction. In view of these limitations, research has turned towards the development of numerical methods such as the finite element approach. However, past applications of the finite element approach to buried conduit installations have involved either parametric studies or very limited correlation of measured field response to predicted response. Moreover, the currently incorporated soil and conduit models are only phenomenal in nature. Therefore, to validate, improve, or confer any confidence in the approach, a comprehensive comparison between measured and predicted response is necessary with representative soil and conduit parameters. Evaluation of the approach was completed on four fully instrumented buried conduit installations. The first installation was a long-span, corrugated steel (flexible) culvert, and the other three were reinforced concrete pipe (rigid) installations. Soil and conduit parameters required for the analyses were obtained from the available laboratory and field tests. Suitability of the respective models was judged on the basis of correlation of measured and predicted soil-conduit response. Besides investigation of soil and conduit models, the study examined the significance of modeling construction processes, interface slip between soil and conduit, sequential layering, and the necessity of employing compaction wings on long-span flexible culverts. The study concluded with an explanation of representative guidelines for: soil and conduit parameters, discretization of the soil-conduit system, incremental construction sequence, and layer size, in order to accurately predict buried conduit response with the finite element approach.
Subject Area
Civil engineering
Recommended Citation
MCVAY, MICHAEL CHARLES, "EVALUATION OF NUMERICAL MODELING OF BURIED CONDUITS" (1982). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI8210354.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI8210354