The service life of rigid sewer pipes is often controlled by joint integrity. Leaking joints can cause ingress of water and develop voids where surrounding soil has eroded. The influence of soil voids on the stability of buried rigid pipes is investigated, considering the effects of void size, void location and void shape. A series of simplified void geometries are defined, and their influence on bending moments in the rigid sewer is studied through finite element analysis. Elastic analysis indicates that the bending moments from expanding voids at the springline will increase slowly, accelerating once the void spans a 45 degree arc, approximately doubling at 90 degrees, and tripling if the loosened backfill is modeled for shear failure. This preliminary study suggests that the growth of erosion voids should be stopped before they reach 45 degrees, but validation through physical testing is necessary. Elastic-plastic finite element analysis is used to calculate the deformation of rigid fractured pipe with different thicknesses, considering both bonded and full-slip interface conditions. The analysis confirms that bonded idealized flexible pipe theory is very effective for calculation of increases in horizontal diameter of the fractured pipe. Furthermore, decreases in vertical diameter can be simply related to increase in horizontal diameter using (1-2t/OD) obtained from fractured pipe kinematics. Both elastic and elastic-plastic finite element analyses used to study the deformations of fractured rigid pipe reveal that contact angle appears to be the dominant factor affecting fractured pipe deformations. Deformation of the damaged rigid pipe increases dramatically with void growth and accelerates when erosion void contacts with the outer surface of the pipe over an arc greater than 45 degrees. Computational analyses examine the behavior of centrifuge model tests which examine soil load transfer to flexible sewer liners after fracture and erosion voids form nearby. The magnitude of deformation changes for finite element models is found to be comparable to observations when voids are formed at springline. However the development patterns are dramatically different as voids located under the invert, and it appears that the laboratory test featured physical characteristics that are not modeled in the analysis. / Thesis (Master, Civil Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2007-09-24 20:33:29.689