Discussion of 'Laboratory Study on Geosynthetic Protection of Buried Steel-Reinforced HDPE Pipes from Static Loading' by Ryan Corey, Jie Han, Deep K. Khatri, and Robert L. Parsons

摘要

Over the last 3 decades the academic geotechnical engineering community has been involved in conducting laboratory and full-scale testing on geosynthetics to study the benefits of using these materials for the protection of shallow buried pipes. Such testing is based on the concept that the stiffness of this material itself and the resulting stiffness of soils with geosynthetic inclusions would be beneficial in relieving the stresses to which the pipes may be subjected when buried at shallow depths (and subjected to traffic, construction, and permanent loads). Noteable previous studies on the benefits of geosynthetics was conducted at Carleton University, Ottawa, in 1983 and 1987 under the direction of Professor Gunther Bauer, who reported the results of full-scale laboratory tests investigating the use of geogrid geosynthetic under static and repeated load conditions in controlling settlement (Bauer 1994). More recently, Bueno et al. (2005) reported preliminary results on a novel construction method to reduce vertical stresses on buried pipes. This research effort done on both small-scale and large-scale facilities showed that the vertical stresses acting on top of the pipe can be significantly reduced by the use of geosynthetic reinforcement. Factors influencing the design are the length and location of geosynthetic in relation to the top of the structure soil type, soil density, and stiffness of the geosynthetic inclusion. Additional research efforts have been made since that time by other researchers as noted by the authors of the original paper.