Combined Effect of Temperature and Soil load on Buried HDPE pipe

HDPE pipes, mostly buried underground, have been widely used in industry. Much research has been done on pipe property changing with time or temperature. But thermal expansion of pipe was neglected. This paper investigated the combined effect of soil load and temperature on HDPE pipe with introduction of thermal expansion. Stress and deflection variation with time of buried HDPE pipe were studied in ABAQUS. Result showed pipe temperature had great influence on buried HDPE pipe performance. Thermal stress was much larger than stress caused by soil load. And thermal expansion prevented pipe from deflecting due to soil load, which can protect HDPE pipe in applications.