A new shell finite element method (FEM) model with an equivalent boundary is presented for estimating the re- sponse of a buried pipeline under large fault movement. The length of affected pipeline under fault movement is usually too long for a shell-mode calculation because of the limitation of memory and time of computers. In this study, only the pipeline segment near fault is modeled with plastic shell elements to study the local buckling and the large section deformation in pipe. The material property of pipe segment far away from the fault is considered as elastic, and nonlinear spring elements at equivalent boundaries are obtained and applied to two ends of shell model. Compared with the fixed-boundary shell model, the shell model with an equivalent boundary proposed by the study can remarkably reduce the needed memory and calculating time.
In this paper,the rupture characteristics of the overlaying soil with soft interlayer were studied by plane-strain finite element method. From the results,it can be shown that the existence of soft layer separates rupture process of the overlaying soil into two phases. The depth of a buried soft interlayer will influence the rupture process and the rupture range of the overlaying soil. The deeply buried soft interlayer would bring about a wider range of sur-face failure. In addition,the thickness of the soft layer also has effect on the rupture process and rupture range of the overlaying soil.
