Evaluation of Condition of Prestressed Concrete Cylidner Pipe (PCCP) Using Numerical Simulation

Prestressed Concrete Cylinder Pipe (PCCP) has been widely used for water/wastewater transmission mains in North America, where more than 22,000 miles of PCCP has been installed. PCCP usually has large diameter and high internal pressure, therefore, once it fails, the consequences can be catastrophic. Developments in condition assessment technologies help people to understand the structural defects such as cracks in mortar coating and concrete, and the number/location of the broken prestressing wires in the pipe. However, this information cannot tell the influence of these defects on the structural performance of the pipe; besides, current technologies have the limitation in detecting the circumferential position of the broken wires.Among the failure causes of PCCP, wire breakage is one of the key factors that weaken PCCP structural integrity. This paper presents a 3–D finite element (FE) model to investigate the influence of wire breakage numbers and its circumferential position on the pipe. In this FE model used in this paper, the internal pressure, gravity of soil and pipe are considered as loading conditions. The structural details such as concrete core, steel cylinder, prestressing wires are simulated.