Pipeline Engineering

Buried PE Pipe Design - Large Vehicle Load (Demo)

This tool was developed to determine PE pipe's capacity to withstand the external load from large equipment that may be considerably heavier than H20 trucks, such as mine trucks and construction equipment. This tool adopted one of the popular methods, the Timoshenko Equation, to find the soil pressure at a point directly under an excessive wheel load, neglecting any pavement.

Pipe Input Data

Select "Custom" for manual pipe OD and wall thickness inputs.
Select "Custom" for manual pipe OD and wall thickness inputs.
inch
inch
 
 
Using the short-term modulus is satisfactory for most applications for PE pressure pipes installed in granular or compacted fills. Other design conditions may use long-term modulus to be conservative.
psi

Load Input Data

pcf
ft
inch
lb
ft²
 

Design Parameters

 
Typically, bedding factor is 0.1
 
Typically, the time-lag factor ranges from 1.25 to 1.5. For design purposes, a time-lag factor of 1.5 is generally conservative for flexible pipes including PE pipe.

Output Data

psi
Surcharge may be other distributed loads to create pressure in the soil beneath the loaded area, such as footings, foundations, or other stationary loads. It is assumed to be 0 unless otherwise specified.
%
Deflection limit selected for pressure pipe. For non-pressure applications, deflection limit is 7.5%.