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滑坡，一些大型海底滑坡产生了海啸，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海上油气开发的基础设施。各种因素可能引发陆上和海上滑坡；然而，敏感粘土层的存在、河岸附近的脚趾侵蚀、上坡荷载、软弱带的形成和地震荷载是目前研究的主要焦点。大规模滑坡一般是由破坏面逐渐发展而形成的，许多破坏的土块沿着破坏面移动了很长一段距离。同样，失败的土体在失败后的运动，被称为“跳动”，也可能对人类生活和基础设施造成毁灭性的影响。数值模拟技术可以适应如此大的土壤变形，将在本研究项目中发展，以研究陆上和海上滑坡和跳动。此外，位于滑坡区或跳动区内的管道或桩可能会因滑动土体传递给这些结构的力而受到破坏或破坏。将使用岩土离心机进行数值分析和物理建模，以了解管道-土壤和桩-土壤相互作用机制，可用于改进设计指南。纽芬兰纪念大学将资助4名硕士和5名博士研究生的研究。

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 pipeline–soil and pile–soil 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.