Steel pipelines are vulnerable to the movements of active faults. Few studies focused on reverse faults. The deformational behavior of buried steel pipelines crossing an active reverse fault is investigated in this paper by applying 3D continuum finite element modeling. Numerical simulations indicate that local buckling (or wrinkling) mode of failure is more sensitive to the pipeline rather than tensile failure mode. The results were also confirmed by the experiment. Based on parametric studies, the pipeline capacity against failure can be significantly improved by reducing the burial depth and the pipe thickness ratio. Besides, the soil consistency around the pipe has a great effect on the behavior of buried pipelines. Furthermore, it is found out that the failed pipeline sections would be generated in longer distance from the fault plane as the soil behaves more softly or the pipeline is more flexible. These findings can lead the designers to have a safer and economic design of pipelines crossing reverse faulting zones.

钢质管道易受活动断层运动的影响。很少有研究关注反向故障。通过应用3D连续体有限元建模，研究了穿越主动反向断层的地下输油管道的变形行为。数值模拟表明，局部屈曲（或起皱）失效模式比拉伸失效模式对管道更敏感。实验也证实了结果。根据参数研究，可以通过降低埋深和管道厚度比来显着提高管道的抗破坏能力。此外，管道周围的土壤稠度对埋地管道的性能也有很大的影响。此外，结果发现，随着土壤行为的更柔和或管道的柔韧性，失效管道段将在距断层平面更远的距离处产生。这些发现可以使设计人员对穿越反向断层带的管道进行更安全，更经济的设计。