Soil–pipe interaction due to tunnelling: Assessment of Winkler modulus for underground pipelines

One of the key problems in the implementation of Winkler models to analyze tunnelling effects on existing pipelines lies in the assessment of subgrade modulus under external soil displacement. In this paper, an expression of the Winkler subgrade modulus for a pipeline buried at arbitrary depth and subjected to free soil displacement with arbitrary curve shape is given. Using superposition principle and the Fourier integral, the subgrade modulus of an infinite beam resting on the surface of an elastic half space and buried infinitely are obtained respectively. Then the influence of embedment depth is estimated based on Mindlin and Kelvin solution. The validity of the proposed subgrade modulus is verified by comparison with the results from an elastic continuum solution and two centrifuge model tests for the responses of buried pipeline due to nearby tunnelling. Thereafter, parametric studies are shown to assess the accuracy of the proposed subgrade modulus by comparing with an elastic continuum solution in homogeneous and non-homogeneous soil stratum and the amount of error is estimated.