Northwest Luncheon – Edmonton, AB
Join us for an educational luncheon on a practical, risk-informed workflow to estimate pull forces for HDD installations of bundled steel pipes.
This presentation demonstrates a practical, risk-informed workflow to estimate pull forces for HDD installations of bundled steel pipes. The bundle is represented as an equivalent single pipe (ESP) and analyzed with unit-consistent PRCI pullback mechanics along the as-designed profile; uncertainty in key drivers—static/kinetic soil friction, drilling-fluid shear stress and density, enlargement ratio, curvature tolerance, and low-side cuttings effects—is propagated via Monte Carlo with rank-correlated inputs, while geometry remains deterministic. On a set of representative Alberta crossings, the method delivers section-wise P50–P95 envelopes and a rig-entry exceedance curve (PRCI P50, P95), providing a transparent percentile-based margin to the available rig rating. Results are contrasted with a NEN-3650 computation to show how methodology affects central tendency and tail risk; a compact sensitivity analysis (tornado/Sobol) highlights the dominant levers (μ_k, τ_mud, enlargement), directly informing field controls for drilling fluid and reaming/cleaning strategy.
Presenter: Fredy A. Díaz-Durán, Ph.D.
Fredy A. Díaz-Durán, Ph.D., is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of Alberta. He earned his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering (Geotechnics) from the University of Waterloo and has directed industry-partnered projects, led research initiatives, and taught and supervised student teams in dynamic soil characterization, slope and excavation stability, and sustainability/LCA for subsurface works. His current work advances computational geomechanics, geohazard assessment, and risk analysis for resilient underground and geotechnical infrastructure—integrating field and laboratory characterization with numerical modelling and statistical/probabilistic methods to enable risk-informed decision-making under uncertainty. He translates ground–structure interaction into clear performance ranges and design margins for a wide spectrum of systems and contexts, including linear corridors and utilities, trenchless works (e.g., HDD), tunnels, foundations, and geohazard-prone sites in municipal, energy, and transportation settings.
