Buried Pipeline Subjected to Ground Deformation and Seismic Landslide: A State-of-the-Art Review

Pipelines are commonly used for transporting different materials namely water, gas, sewage, and oil from one place to another. The different past earthquakes (1923 Kanto earthquake, 1971 San Fernando earthquake, 1994 Northridge earthquake, 2010 Chile earthquake) induced hazards such as landslide, fault movement, liquefaction, etc., resulting in the damage of buried pipelines. These hazards induced ground deformations are known as permanent ground deformation (PGD), and the deformation resulting from wave propagation is called transient ground deformation (TGD). Further, soil can move along or normal to the pipe axis, and accordingly, it can be further categorized as axial and transverse ground deformation respectively. Apart from seismic excitation, ground deformation and vibration can also be generated from other sources like pipe bursting, underground explosion etc. Failure of pipelines due to ground deformation can cause the source of firing, contamination to the environment, explosion, economic loss etc. Therefore, it is vital to design the buried pipeline incorporating the effect of possible ground movement on buried pipelines. Thus, the focus of the present review study is to understand the various possible patterns of ground deformation, estimation of additional forces on pipeline due to ground deformation, and their influence on the response of buried pipeline, which can be implemented in practice to carry out performance-based design of buried pipelines subjected to earthquake loadings.