Seismic Design of Buried and Offshore Pipelines

by M.J. ORourke and (Jack) X. Liu 11/28/2012 MCEER-12-MN04 380 pages

An update to Response of Buried Pipelines Subject to Earthquake Effects, published in 1999
The earthquake safety of buried pipelines has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years. These pipeline systems are commonly used to transport water, sewage, oil, natural gas and other materials. They are often referred to as lifelines since they carry materials essential to the support of life in modern communities. Many new research developments as well as observations following significant earthquakes around the world have impacted the current state-of-the-art on the seismic design of buried pipelines since the 1999 version of this monograph was published. Offshore pipelines have been added to the current version because of their importance in addressing the worlds energy needs. Thus, there was a need to update the monograph.

Figure 4.2 Tear at Wrinkle in Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl Pipeline (Mexico City, 1985)

About the Authors

Michael ORourke, Ph.D., P.E.
Michael ORourke, Ph.D., P.E. has been a Professor in the Civil Engineering Department at Rensselaer since 1974. The seismic behavior and design of buried pipeline is one of his main research areas. He has authored over two dozen professional journal papers as well as over five dozen conference papers on the topic. He has participated in post-earthquake reconnaissance for events in Mexico; Costa Rica; Landers, California; San Fernando, California; and Taiwan. Funding for his research has come primarily from the National Science Foundation, through the RANN, PFR, NCEER and NEESR programs. He is the 2001 recipient of the ASCE C. Martin Duke Lifeline Earthquake Engineering Award.

Figure 8.3 Measured Axial and Bending Strains in HDPE Pipe Subject to Nominal Tension Strike-Slip Offsets (After Ha et al., 2008)

(Jack) X. Liu, Ph.D., P.E.

(Jack) X. Liu, Ph.D., P.E. has 20 years of experience in both pipeline research and engineering. His engineering experience extends from onshore to offshore, and from shallow water to deepwater. He has conducted extensive research on pipe response to earthquakes, pipe-soil interaction forces, strain criteria, cryogenic pipelines and HTHP pipelines. He is the inventor of the Relaxing LNG Transfer System, and an author/coauthor of over a dozen of technical articles. He has been a principal consultant of Liu Advanced Engineering, LLC since 2008. He holds a BS from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and Ph.D from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Ordering Information
Visit the MCEER Publications Catalog at http://mceer.buffalo.edu/publications/catalog.html for price and availability information. To pre-order, send an email to jestoyle@buffalo.edu.

A summary of the current chapters, highlighting new and revised information, is as follows:
NEW Chapter on Earthquake Fundamentals includes basic phenomena and terminology, causes, consequences, and measures of size Description of the various forms of permanent ground deformation (PGD) and procedures to quantify and model the amount and spatial extent of PGD; UPDATED with new lateral spread/fault offset relations as well as characterization of various offshore PGD hazards Review of seismic wave propagation and procedures for estimating ground strain due to travelling wave effects; UPDATED with new information on coherence of seismic waves and its influence on the effective propagation velocity as well as Next Generation attenuation relations from USGS Failure modes and criteria for buried pipelines; UPDATED to include new limit state relations from recent guidelines as well as criteria for offshore pipelines Commonly used techniques to model soil-pipe interaction; UPDATED with descriptions of the underlying mechanics for onshore pipe as well as new relations for trenched offshore pipe and those laid directly on the seabed

Figure 4.1 Pencil in Tear at Wrinkle in RECOPE Pipeline (Limon, Costa Rica, 1991)

Response of continuous pipelines subject to longitudinal and transverse PGD; UPDATED with new analytical relations for the wider PGD zones common in the offshore environment Continuous pipe response due to faulting; UPDATED with new analytical results as well as centrifuge tests for normal and reverse faulting Response of segmented pipeline subject to PGD; UPDATED to include simplified relations from the American Lifeline Alliance, as well as comparisons with full scale laboratory tests Behavior of continuous pipeline subject to seismic wave propagation; UPDATED to include detailed discussion of two seismic WP damage case histories, new material on bends and elbows, and buried pipelines at industrial facilities Behavior of segmented pipelines subject to seismic wave propagation; UPDATED with new mechanics-based approach for damage evaluation for both tensile and compressive ground strain environments NEW Chapter with detailed review of seismic hazards and the performance of buried pipelines in past earthquakes including American Lifeline Alliance fragility relations, as well as ground strain based fragility relations

Figure 12.5 Revised Fragility Relation for Segmented Pipelines from M. ORourke (2009) (After M. ORourke, 2009)

Countermeasures to reduce damage to pipelines including isolation valves; UPDATED to include pipe mitigation using anchor points and soft joints NEW Chapter with three design examples continuous water pipeline subject to lateral spreading, risk assessment of water pipeline subject to wave propagation, and offshore pipeline subject to marine landslide