Damage Mitigation for Buried Pipeline Using EPS Geofoam under Permanent Ground Deformation

Permanent ground deformation (PGD) caused by earthquake is a significant hazard for buried pipelines. A new concept of damage mitigation for buried pipelines subject to PGD is proposed. Expand polystyrene (EPS) geofoam is used as flexible material to wrap pipelines. While the fault moving, EPS geofoam provide more compressive deformation than the soil and pipeline, thus the deformation and damage of pipeline can be reduced according to the mitigation action of EPS geofoam. In order to testify the mitigation concept, numerical analyses by there dimensional (3D) finite element method were performed. In those analyses, the behaviors of the mitigated pipeline were compared with conventional pipeline. The results indicate that the deformation and bending curvature of pipeline mitigated with the EPS geofoam is minimized obviously than conventional pipeline.