Buckling Behavior of Loosely Fitted Formed-In-Place Pipe Liner in Circular Host Pipe under External Pressure

The formed-in-place pipe (FIPP) is a trenchless technology used for pipeline rehabilitation. It is a folded PVC pipe that expands through thermoforming to fit tightly inside the host pipe. However, the deficiencies during the construction of FIPP liners such as insufficient inflation, pipe misalignment and initial deformation will lead to elliptical deformation of the FIPP liner, which affects the load-bearing performance of the liner and makes it susceptible to buckling failure. In this paper, the buckling behavior of loosely fitted FIPP liners under uniform external pressure was investigated by the external pressure resistance test and finite element model. The pre- and post-buckling equilibrium paths verified the finite element model. The results indicated that the value of the dimension ratio will significantly reduce the critical buckling pressure. With the increasing value of liner major axis ratio to host pipe, the reduction effect on the critical buckling pressure caused by the increase in the ovality will diminish. Different values of liner major axis ratio to host pipe and ovality changed the range of the detached portion, which affected the critical buckling pressure. The parametric studies modified the design model from ASTM F1216, which was established to predict the critical buckling pressure of a loosely fitted FIPP liner and reduced the average difference rate from 23.43% to 5.52%.