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Yes / The performance of buried rigid pipes underneath geogrid-reinforced soil while applying incrementally increased cyclic loading was assessed using a fully instrumented laboratory rig. The influence of varying two parameters of practical importance was investigated; the pipe burial depth and the number of geogrid-layers. Measurements were taken for pipe deformation, footing settlement, strain in pipe and reinforcing layers, and pressure/soil stress on the pipe crown during various stages of cyclic loading. The research outcomes demonstrated a rapid increase in the rate of deformation of the pipe and the footing, and the rate of generated strain in the pipe and the geogrid-layers during the first 300 cycles. While applying further cycles, those rates were significantly decreased. Increasing the pipe burial depth and number of geogrid-layers resulted in reductions in the footing and the pipe deformations, the pressure on pipe crown, and the pipe strains. Redistribution of stresses, due to the inclusion of reinforcing layers, formed a confined zone surrounding the pipe providing it with additional lateral support. The pipe invert experienced a rebound, which was found to be dependent on pressure around the pipe and the degree of densification of the bedding layer. Data for strains measured in the geogrid-layers showed that despite the applied loading value and the pipe burial depth, the tensile strain in the lower geogrid-layer was usually higher than that measured in the upper layer.

Yes / Because of the recent worldwide construction expansion, new roads and buildings may be constructed over already existing buried infrastructures e.g. buried utility pipes, leading to excessive loads threatening their stability and longevity. Limited research studies are available to assess the effect of geogrid reinforcing layers inclusion on mitigating the additional stresses on buried structures due to cyclic loadings. In this research, large-scale fully instrumented laboratory tests were conducted to investigate the behaviour of flexible High-Density Polyethylene pipes (HDPE), in unreinforced and geogrid-reinforced sand, subjected to incrementally increasing cyclic loading, e.g. due to different vehicles capacities or load increase with passing time. Results illustrated that deformation rate in pipe and footing, strain generation rate in pipe and reinforcing layers are rapidly increased in the initial loading cycles, in particular during the first 300 cycles, and then the rate of change decreases significantly, as more cycles are applied. In the unreinforced case, increasing the pipe burial depth significantly reduced the generated deformation and strain in the pipe; however, it has a situational effect on the footing settlement, where it increased after pipe burial depth to its diameter ratio (H/D) of 2.5. In reinforced cases, deformation and strain significantly reduced with the increase in pipe burial depth and number of reinforcing layers. Measurement of strain illustrated that strain generated in the lower reinforcing layer is always higher than that recorded in the upper one, regardless pipe burial depth and value of applied load.

Recent developments in constructions have heightened the need for protecting existing buried infrastructure. New roads and buildings may be constructed over already existing buried infrastructures e.g. buried utility pipes, leading to excessive loads threatening their stability and longevity. Additionally applied loads over water mains led to catastrophic damage, which result in severe damage to the infrastructure surrounding these mains. Therefore, providing protection to these existing buried infrastructure against increased loads due to new constructions is important and necessary. In this research, a solution was proposed and assessed, where the protection concept would be achieved through the inclusion process of geogrid-reinforcing layers in the soil cover above the buried infrastructure. The controlling parameters for the inclusion of geogrid-reinforcing layers was assessed experimentally and numerically. Twenty-three laboratory tests were conducted on buried flexible and rigid pipes under unreinforced and geogrid-reinforced sand beds. All the investigated systems were subjected to incrementally increasing cyclic loading, where the contribution of varying the burial depth of the pipe and the number of the geogrid-reinforcing layers on the overall behaviour of the systems was investigated. To further investigate the contribution of the controlling parameters in the pipe-soil systems performance, thirty-five numerical models were performed using Abaqus software. The contribution of increasing the amplitude of the applied cyclic loading, the number of the geogrid-reinforcing layers, the burial depth of the pipe and the unit-weight of the backfill soil was investigated numerically. The inclusion of the geogrid-reinforcing layers in the investigated pipe-soil systems had a significant influence on decreasing the transferred pressure to the crown of the pipe, generated strains along its crown, invert and spring-line, and its deformation, where reinforcing-layers sustained tensile strains. Concerning rigid pipes, the inclusion of the reinforcing-layers controlled the rebound that occurred in their invert deformation. With respect to the numerical investigation, increasing the number of the reinforcing-layers, the burial depth of the pipe and the unit-weight of the backfill soil had positive effect in decreasing the generated deformations, stresses and strains in the system, until reaching an optimum value for each parameter. Increasing the amplitude of the applied loading profile resulted in remarkable increase in the deformations, stresses and strains generated in the system. Moreover, the location of the maximum tensile strain generated in the soil was varied, as well as the reinforcing-layer, which suffered the maximum tensile strain. / Government of Egypt

The aim of this diploma thesis was the design of three possible variants, how to span the wide and deep valley with a bridge. After an evaluation, situation of the highway on the only wide load-bearing structure which is constituted by a box girder with transverse cantilevers supported by prefabricated bar braces, was chosen as an optimal solving. The load- bearing structure made of post- tensioned concrete is going to be incrementally launched and be supported by one-column pillars along an axis of the motorway. The work is composed of a detailed design of this preferred variant, which is processed according to the ultimate and serviceability limit state including the construction stage analysis of the bridge by the construction technology by an incremental launching method.