Theoretical and numerical analyses of hydrostatic buckling of a noncircular composite liner with arched invert

•Buckling failure of a noncircular liner was studied theoretical and numerically.•Theoretical solution to the buckling of invert composite liner was presented.•FE method was successfully employed for nonlinear and contact analyses.•The two solutions were verified by the good agreement of their results.

This study considered the hydrostatic buckling failure of a noncircular composite liner with an arched invert installed in the sewer pipe. An equation was derived for the buckling of the invert liner, and its application procedure was proposed. A finite-element method was successfully employed for nonlinear and contact analyses of the buckling behaviour and the physical contact phenomena of different sewer culverts. Generally, the composite liner fails in a single-lobe buckling at the invert with the deflection similar to that observed onsite. The proposed theoretical solution was verified through numerical analysis; the critical pressure and buckling mode results showed good agreement.