ABSTRACT

This paper describes the procedures and results of a static and dynamic testing program designed to determine the axial stiffness and force capacity of some typical restrained and unrestrained buried pipe joints. Pipelines have suffered damage and failure from past earthquakes and have been shown to be vulnerable to seismic motions. It has been well documented that a majority of the pipeline failures have occurred at unrestrained pipe joints while restrained joints performed better. Therefore, pipe joints, both unrestrained and restrained, need to be examined and their axial strength characteristics need to be investigated in order to help mitigate potential damage and failure. Five different material types with eight different joint types and several different pipe diameters were used in this testing program. The test results are given as load-displacement plots and tables listing the axial stiffness and force capacities. A comparison is made between static results and dynamic results to determine if static testing is sufficient to characterize the dynamic behavior of pipe joints. This paper also suggests methods to use test results for pipeline system analysis and for risk assessment evaluation.