Lateral earth pressure on a pipe buried in soft grounds undergoing lateral movement

A laboratory test was performed to predict the lateral earth pressure on the pipe buried in soft ground subject to lateral movement. The boundary of the punching shear was drawn from the observed configuration, and an analytical model was derived based on the configuration of the punching shear. Due to the elastic and plastic deformation of the lateral earth pressure, the yielding point was clearly detected and used for analysis. It was confirmed that there is no size effect of the buried model pipe. The lateral loads measured in the model test with movement rate of 0.2 mm/min showed good agreement with those estimated by the proposed equations, which signifies that the soil movement rate of 0.2 mm/min was the maximum rate for safe construction.