Grant: Alliance Grants

Buried pipes are a viable and economical means of transporting liquids and gases such as clean water, sewage, oil, and natural gas. However, the pipelines are often exposed to various geohazards, including differential ground movements resulting from earthquakes, landslides, fault movements, and other sources. It is essential to assess the performance of the pipelines exposed to the hazards to ensure pipeline safety. The applicant's research focuses on assessing the performance of buried pipelines subjected to geohazard using experimental and numerical methods for developing a design method for the pipes. Large-scale static tests are used to observe the pipe and soil responses during ground movements, and finite element models are used to predict the observed behaviors. The collaborators in Japan are experts on the earthquake disaster risk reduction of civil infrastructure, including pipelines. They employ full-scale dynamic testing of buried pipes to investigate the pipe responses under seismic ground movement and discrete element modeling techniques to explore the behavior of the soil-pipe interface. The expertise on earthquake-induced effects on the pipelines is lacking in Canada. The proposed project will bring the expertise of the collaborators to complement the applicant's expertise and strengthen his research program in Canada. The applicant and the collaborators will exchange their experience, expertise, and ideas in the proposed collaborative project and initiate a new international research collaboration. A detailed plan will be first developed to carry out an experimental and numerical study of buried pipes using the facilities of the collaborators. The experiments will be conducted using the facility at Kobe University. The numerical analysis will be carried out using the discrete element method, finite element method, and the extended finite element method at the Institute for Disaster Prevention, Kyoto University. Based on the findings from the experimental and numerical works, a new research project will be developed for the Alliance International Collaboration grants application.