Modeling pressure pipe embedded in two-layer soil by a half-plane BEM

In this paper, an elastostatic half-plane boundary element method (BEM) formulation was applied to analyze the stress behavior of underground pressure pipes, embedded in two-layer soils. In the use of this method, only the boundary of pipe and interfaces were required to be discretized. In this regard, first, a computer code was prepared based on a multi-region substructuring process in the BEM scheme. Then, the efficiency and applicability of the method as well as the prepared algorithm were verified by solving some practical examples and comparing the results with those of the published works. Finally, a parametric study was done to evaluate the effect of pipe depth and determine the soil stress distribution. The studies showed that the half-plane BEM was in good agreement with the existing solutions and its capability was very favorable for elastostatic problems including semi-infinite domain. It is obvious that this method can be practically used to analyze the geotechnical underground buildings in substituting the full-plane BEM formulation.