Influence of buried pipes on deformations near shallow foundations

In the design of the buried-pipe systems, precise calculation of the pressures that will act on the pipe is crucial as the most essential needs of humankind are conveyed or provided by buried-pipe systems. Also, recognizition of the damage or problem is hard in the buried-pipe systems; therefore, it may take considerable amount of time to repair the system. Besides, when the pipes are placed under a foundation, classical soil response is affected by the foundation-pipe interaction as the pipe-system creates a discontinuity in the soil. There are many parameters that affect the pressures acting on the pipe, such as location of the pipe, relative density of the backfill, and pipe rigidity. In this work, small-scale physical model tests were conducted to examine the effect of pipe location on the pressures acting on the pipe and failure surface. A sand backfill was used in the experiments. To find the pipe pressures, strain gages were used, while to evaluate the changes in the extent of the affected regions, photographs of the tests were analyzed using particle image velocimetry(PIV) method. A total of 10 tests were done with a systematic change in the burial depth and horizontal distance from the foundation. Acquired data from strain gages and from PIV analysis were analyzed and examined, and the results were discussed.