Strain Analysis of Buried Pipelines in Trench Models Crossing Strike-Slip Faults

Long-distance buried pipelines are the core type in pipeline transportation; the technical indexes and requirements for protection are stricter. In the previous coupling model of pipe and soil, the in-situ soil and backfill soil are treated as a unified continuous medium, and the actual geometric shape and boundary effect of the pipe trench are ignored through simplification of the calculation model. In this study, a new coupling model of in-situ soil, backfill soil, and pipeline is proposed to analyze the actual strain state of buried pipeline with different backfill soil and in-situ soil materials. A model was established based on the ANSYS software to simulate and investigate the mechanical behavior of strike-slip fault-crossing buried pipelines under real trench conditions. By varying multiple parameters, this study analyzes the effects of different operating conditions on the strain distribution and magnitude of buried pipelines. The findings of this study can serve as a reference for the design, construction, and protection of buried pipelines traversing active faults.