Simulação numérica do comportamento de dutos enterrados sujeitos a movimentos de massa

Abstract

The present study presents a series of computational simulations aiming at modeling a mass movement transversal to a buried pipeline structure, by observing the soil deformation and estimating the forces acting on the pipeline. The results of such simulations are compared to the results obtained in previously conducted tests on a geotechnical centrifuge at COPPE (Graduate Institute of Engineering of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro). The conducted tests simulated the movement of a homogeneous soil mass acting on a pipeline through its mobilization by a plate. Two approaches were used for the computational simulation of the tests. The first approach considered an incremental analysis, with implicit matrix and Cam-clay constitutive model. The second one used the Mohr-Coulomb criterion model for soil and explicit solution. The reactions found on the instrumented plate and in the pipeline were compared, for the physical and numerical modeling. Although initially the Cam-clay constitutive model was considered to be the one best representing a soil with low consistency, the processing with implicit matrix showed some limitations, thus needing to complement the analysis with the Mohr-Coulomb parameter modeling.