Soil Load on Plastic Pipe and its Influence on Lifetime

Lifetime of plastic pipes can be estimated by integration of a power law describing the crack kinetics. However, this procedure requires an FEM (finite element method) calculation of the possible crack propagation in the pipe to obtain stress intensity factor dependency on the crack length. It is very important for the simulation to consider every possible load that is acting on the pipe. This contribution deals with FEM modelling of a pipe that is loaded by internal pressure, residual stresses and soil loads. Comparison of the factors and pipe lifetime estimation is carried out.