Your new experience awaits. Try the new design now and help us make it even better

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Built Environ.

Sec. Structural Sensing, Control and Asset Management

Volume 11 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fbuil.2025.1607111

This article is part of the Research TopicMonitoring and controlling the structural integrity and reliability of buildings for hurricanes and tornadoesView all articles

Revised Peck's Formula for Estimating Pipeline's Settlement under the Coupling Effect of Tunnelling & Vehicle Load

Provisionally accepted
  • China Railway 18th Bureau Group Corp,Ltd., tianjing, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

When the pipelines are subjected to shallow tunnel underpassing and ground traffic loads, the void effect will significantly amplify the dynamic response and safety risks of pipelines. A threedimensional finite element model was established to quantify the adverse impact of tunnelling and vehicle load coupling. Then, based on the settlement distribution characteristics, a revised Peck formula is established to estimate the pipelines' settlement in different depths and positions. The results reveal that the settlement of soil and pipeline caused by tunnelling decreases with decreasing burial depth; the dynamic settlement of the sewage pipe and ground surface is decreasing rapidly as the burial depth increases. Whether the pipeline is buried close to the surface or tunnel, it should be noted that the pipeline's dynamic settlement or cumulative settlement may exceed the safety limit, and the safety risks of pipelines will be greatly underestimated by ignoring the dynamic settlement and its adverse impacts on the pipeline joints. When the depth is less than 1.5m or the distance apart from the tunnel arch is less than 1.0 m, the pipelines' settlement would exceed the limit.

Keywords: Peck's formula, Subway tunnels, pipelines, settlement, Control standards

Received: 07 Apr 2025; Accepted: 29 Aug 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Peng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Shu Peng, China Railway 18th Bureau Group Corp,Ltd., tianjing, China

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.