This report is one of a series of reports documenting the methods and findings of a multi-year, multi-disciplinary project conducted by the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER) with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), and funded by the California Energy Commission (CEC). The overall project is titled “Performance-based Earthquake Engineering Assessment Tool for Natural Gas Storage and Pipeline Systems” henceforth referred
to as the “OpenSRA Project.” The overall goal of the OpenSRA project is to create an open-source research-based seismic risk assessment tool for natural gas infrastructure that can be used by utility stakeholders to better understand state-wide risks, prioritize mitigation, plan new gas infrastructure, and help focus on post-earthquake repair work.
The project team includes researchers from LBNL, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, University of Nevada Reno, the NHERI SimCenter at UC Berkeley, and Slate Geotechnical Consultants and its subcontractors Lettis Consultants International (LCI) and Thomas O’Rourke. Focused research to advance the seismic risk assessment tool was conducted by Task Groups, each addressing a particular area of study and expertise, and collaborating with the other Task Groups.
This report is the product of Task Group D: Performance of gas storage and pipeline system surface infrastructure. The scope of this report is to describe in detail an experimental program on piping components performed at UC San Diego. This experimental study included displacementcontrolled
cyclic tests, loading specimens both in-plane and out-of-plane, on four tee and four elbow specimens. Two combinations of pipe diameter and Schedule (thickness) were considered, namely: 4 in. diameter Schedule 80 and 8 in. diameter Schedule 40. These two geometries were selected as they are typically used in natural gas storage facilities and in the natural gas distribution network, respectively.
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