The current soil-thermoplastic pipe interaction system design procedure in the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Bridge Specifications dates from the early 1980s and is based on the design procedure for corrugated metal pipe. The procedure relies on ring compression limits, although this mode of failure may not occur in thermoplastic pipe either in practice or in research. At the same time, the procedure ignores other relevant performance limits, such as deflection and wall profile stability, and it does not account for the time-dependent nature of thermoplastic materials.
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