The California Energy Commission has published “Performance-Based Earthquake Engineering Assessment Tool for Natural Gas Storage and Pipeline Systems, Task B Final Report – Enhanced Liquefaction and Ground Deformation Report.” It was written by Chris Bain, UC Berkeley; Daniel Hutabarat, UC Berkeley; Jonathan D. Bray, UC Berkeley, Norman Abrahamson, UC Berkeley; Thomas D. O’Rourke, Cornell University; and Scott Lindvall, Lettis Consultants.
The publication is an interim project report for the OpenSRA project. OpenSRA is a new open-source seismic risk assessment software tool for gas utility regulators and owners that will enable them to strategically assess challenges posed by the risk from earthquake-induced hazards. OpenSRA includes existing and new methods to assess the risk to buried pipelines from ground displacements due to surface fault rupture, liquefaction-induced lateral spreading and ground settlement, and seismic slope displacement. The pipe strain response to permanent ground displacements is estimated and fragility curves are evaluated to estimate the probability of pipe rupture.