Uplift resistance of buried pipelines in partially saturated sands

High Pressure and High Temperature (HPHT) oil and gas pipelines are commonly buried subsurface and the depth of burial is determined by upheaval buckling mitigation requirement or legislation requirement. The upheaval buckling mitigation design requires evaluation of uplift resistance of soil in which pipeline is buried. Conventional design guidelines and current analytical models for predicting the soil uplift resistance are based on either dry soil or fully saturated soil. However, onshore pipeline are buried in soils which are often partially saturated. Therefore, current analytical models do not capture the effects of soil saturation on the uplift resistance of buried pipeline. In partially saturated soils, the uplift resistance is greater than that under fully saturated conditions. This is because the water meniscus between soil particles creates an additional normal force due to suction, which in turn makes the soil behaviour stiffer and stronger. This paper presents full scale pipe-soil tests results and finite-element parametric studies conducted to investigate the effects of soil moisture content, dimensionless cover heights (soil cover height to diameter ratio) and soil relative density on the peak uplift resistance of pipes. The results demonstrate that the current available analytical models under-predict the soil peak uplift resistance in partially saturated conditions. Further, the analyzed results are presented as dimensionless design charts and non-linear regression models which can be used to quantify the partial saturation effect on uplift resistance of buried pipes.