Identification of key determinants of geo-mechanical behavior of an instrumented buried pipe

Abstract

The instrumentation of extended buried structures provides access to a better understanding of the mechanisms that control the behavior of these structures and those that can affect their durability and lead to their deterioration. In this paper, the follow-up of a new installed and instrumented buried reinforced concrete pressurized pipe is presented. A sensor-enabled geotextile is used in this project to measure ground strains along the new pipeline. The monitoring data let to identify some key determinants as the spatial structure of soil to assess the behavior of the structure under certain loading conditions. A case study illustrates a bidimensional geo-mechanical finite element model of a buried pipeline. A spatial variability approach coupled to the mechanical model allows assessing the risk a pipe presents during operational service at a given time with respect to predefined limit state performance criteria.