Pipeline Engineering in the Ground: The Impact of Ground Conditions on Pipeline Condition and Maintenance Operations

The ground in which utility service pipelines are buried inevitably controls, to a large degree, the structural performance and progressive deterioration of the pipelines themselves. In a parallel program of research to the United Kingdom (UK) Mapping the Underworld (MTU) project, a study of the fundamental properties of the ground, and how they change with the seasons and local physical and chemical contexts, is being conducted at the University of Birmingham, UK. While the results of this study feed into both the operational protocols for the MTU multi-sensor location device and the associated knowledge based system (KBS) that is being created to aid its deployment (both topics being the subjects of separate papers to this conference), the suite of complementary research projects on the ground and its properties provide valuable insights to the pipeline engineer. Geophysics is being used by the research team to explore the state of the ground with the aim of highlighting areas of concern for the structural health of pipelines buried in the ground. Studies of cast iron pipeline corrosion mechanisms have focused on the changes that the reaction products cause to the surrounding soils, with a particular emphasis on clay soils, and one interesting finding is that these clay-iron reaction products can make the pipelines ‘invisible’ to standard geophysical location devices. Moreover there are other features in the ground that are being targeted (voids, ground wetting and softening due to leakage, ground weakening due to progressive erosion), and these features effectively make the ground more or less ‘visible’ to geophysical technologies. Alongside this work, tests have been developed for use on site to ‘calibrate’ the geophysics, thereby enhancing the signatures of the features. This paper introduces these parallel research projects and draws out the important findings for pipeline engineers charged with establishing the condition of existing buried assets.

• Record URL:
  https://doi.org/10.1061/41202(423)169
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/9780784412022
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Copyright © 2011 ASCE
• Corporate Authors:

  American Society of Civil Engineers

  1801 Alexander Bell Drive
  Reston, VA  United States  20191-4400
• Authors:
  • Royal, A C D
  • Rogers, C D F
  • Atkins, P R
  • Chapman, D N
  • Curioni, G
  • Foo, K Y
  • Hao, Tianyong
  • Metje, N
  • Moghareh Abed, T
  • Shirgiri, N
  • Wazlan, S
• Conference:
  • International Conference on Pipelines and Trenchless Technology 2011
  • Location: Beijing , China
  • Date: 2011-10-26 to 2011-10-29
• Publication Date: 2011

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: References;
• Pagination: pp 1598-1609
• Monograph Title: ICPTT 2011: Sustainable Solutions For Water, Sewer, Gas, And Oil Pipelines

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Air voids; Clay soils; Corrosion; Erosion; Geophysics; Maintenance practices; Pipelines; Structural health monitoring; Underground structures; Underground utility lines
• Identifier Terms: Mapping the Underworld
• Geographic Terms: United Kingdom
• Subject Areas: Geotechnology; Maintenance and Preservation; Pipelines; I42: Soil Mechanics; I60: Maintenance;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01469759
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 9780784412022
• Files: TRIS, ASCE
• Created Date: Jan 17 2013 1:48PM