Static Soil Resistance to Pipe Ramming in Granular Soils: Fid-Bau Portal

Static Soil Resistance to Pipe Ramming in Granular Soils

Meskele, Tadesse / Stuedlein, Armin W.

Abstract

Pipe ramming is a cost-effective trenchless pipe installation method in which percussive blows generated by a pneumatically or hydraulically powered encased piston rammer are used to advance a pipe or culvert through the ground. To evaluate the feasibility of a pipe ramming installation, engineers must be able to reliably predict the pipe drivability and installation stresses. Assessment of the drivability of the pipe and selection of the optimal hammer for pipe ramming installation requires that the static and dynamic soil resistance to ramming at the pipe face and along the casing be reliably estimated. However, pipe ramming-specific models are not currently available, and engineers often resort to the existing traditional pipe-jacking and microtunneling models for static soil resistance computations. This paper describes the results of four full-scale pipes rammed in the field and the corresponding static soil resistance to ramming in granular soils. A companion paper addresses dynamic soil resistance and pipe drivability. The accuracy of the existing pipe jacking and microtunneling-based static soil resistance models is evaluated herein and found to provide unsatisfactory estimates of the face and casing resistance. New semiempirical pipe ramming-specific models are proposed based on the field observations and are found to produce good estimates of static soil resistance for use in pipe drivability evaluations.