Fragility Analysis of Buried Pipelines Subjected to Seismic Landslides in Iran

This study introduces performance-based fragility curves for buried pipelines affected by seismic landslides employing numerical simulations with an advanced constitutive model for dynamic analysis. The seismic analysis was carried out using a dataset comprising 70 earthquake records from Iran. The results of this study show that the landslide boundary interface has an important role in slope failure geometry and buried pipe response patterns. By increasing the stiffness in the landslide boundary interface (from smooth to hard), the pipe’s maximum deformation decreases. The deformation predictive model of the pipeline is a function of slope length, slope height, pipe diameter, and Arias intensity as an optimal seismic intensity measure. The developed fragility curves indicate that the probability of pipe failure can significantly decrease in specific slope locations by increasing the pipe diameter.