Development of a full-scale testing facility for buried pipeline-soil interaction behaviour in Kazakhstan

Abstract

Pipelines can be considered as the blood vessels of the economy especially in a country with a large territory and an energy-focused economy like Kazakhstan. Pipeline failure can cause economic and environmental disasters as have happened in this country. A full-scale testing facility was developed at Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan to conduct full-scale testing of the interaction between large and heavy buried pipe and its surrounding soils. The testing rig was fully instrumented with customized state-of-the-art sensors to measure forces, pressures and pipe, soil displacements including measurement of the top soil surface movements with photogrammetric techniques. Realistic monotonic and cyclic loading paths were tested in consultation with industrial collaborators; initial testing results showed that the facility can be successfully used to discover new mechanisms of buried pipe-soil interaction behaviour.