Effects of Ground Movement on Oil and Gas Pipelines and Piles

滑坡发生在陆上和海上环境中。与陆上滑坡类似，文献中也报道了许多水下海底边坡破坏，一些大型海底滑坡会引发海啸，如加拿大纽芬兰近海的大浅滩滑坡。海底滑坡还可能破坏安装在海底的用于近海石油和天然气开发的基础设施。各种因素可以触发陆上和海上滑坡，然而，敏感粘土层的存在，脚趾附近的河岸侵蚀，上坡加载，形成的弱化区和地震荷载是目前研究的主要焦点。大型滑坡一般是通过破坏面沿着逐步发展而形成的，许多破坏的土块沿这些破坏面移动很长的距离。同样地，被破坏的土体在破坏后的运动，也就是所谓的流失，也可能对人类生活和基础设施产生破坏性影响。本研究计划将开发可容纳如此大的土壤变形的数值模拟技术，以研究陆上和海上滑坡和径流。此外，位于滑坡区或径流区的管道或桩可能会由于滑动土体传递到这些结构的力而损坏或破坏。将使用土工离心机进行数值分析和物理建模，以了解管道-地基和桩-地基相互作用机制，这些机制可用于改进设计指南。四个硕士和五个博士候选人的研究将由纽芬兰纪念大学的这笔赠款支持。

Landslides occur in both onshore and offshore environments. Similar to onshore landslides, many underwater seabed slope failures have been reported in the literature, and some of the large submarine landslides generated tsunami such as the Grand Banks landslide in offshore Newfoundland, Canada. Submarine landslides could also damage infrastructure installed in the seabed for offshore oil and gas development. Various factors could trigger onshore and offshore landslides; however, the existence of sensitive clay layers, toe erosion near the riverbank, upslope loading, formation of weakened zones and earthquake loading are the main foci of the present study. The large-scale landslides generally initiate through progressive development of failure planes along which a number of failed soil blocks displace over a large distance. Similarly, post-failure movement of the failed soil mass, known as runout,' could also have devastating effects on human life and infrastructure. Numerical modeling techniques, which can accommodate such large deformation of soil, will be developed in this research program to study onshore and offshore landslides and runout. In addition, pipelines or piles located in the landslide areas or runout zones might be damaged or destroyed due to the force transmitted to these structures by the sliding soil mass. Numerical analysis and physical modeling using a geotechnical centrifuge will be performed to understand pipelinesoil and pilesoil interaction mechanisms which could be used to improve design guidelines. Four Masters and five Doctoral candidates' research will be supported by this grant at Memorial University of Newfoundland.