Response of steel buried pipeline to the three dimensional fault movement

Fault movement during an earthquake may have severe effect on buried pipelines as a lifeline element. A few studies are carried out on the behaviour of buried pipelines to this kind of damage and disruption. In most of these studies, the fault movements are modeled as two-dimensional. In this study, by modeling the pipe as a beam and the surrounding soil as nonlinear springs, the effect of three dimensional movement of fault on buried pipelines is investigated. Some important parameters such as; fault movement, depth of buried, geometrical characteristics of the pipe, angle of pipe- soil friction, angle of pipe- fault crossing, and the fault slip are considered in this study