THE VULNERABILITY ANALYSIS OF PVC WATER PIPELINES

IN THE CHI-CHI EARTHQUAKE

Ban-Jwu SHIH1

ABSTRACT

Substantial damage to the water delivery pipelines was reported after the 1999 Chi-Chi, Taiwan
earthquake. After the earthquake, the construction blueprints of water delivery pipelines and the
repairing work orders of 11 towns and cities in the disastrous area were digitized into a
Geographical Information System (GIS) for analysis and assessment. With the aid of the GIS
system, it was found that PVC pipes made up of 79% for nominal diameter (φ) larger than or equal
to 65mm while steel, cast iron, ductile iron, PE and others took the rest. Therefore, this paper
focused on the fragility analysis of PVC pipes. Two different methods were applied to derive the
fragility relations between the PVC water pipes with φ>=65 mm and the earthquake intensity
parameters such as peak ground acceleration and peak ground velocity. The results were then
examined with those of previous results. The discrepancy from the empirical equation used by
HazUS, an earthquake loss estimation software developed by the Federal Emergency Management
Agency was not significant.

Keywords: lifeline earthquake engineering, Chi-Chi Earthquake, seismic vulnerability Analysis,

buried PVC pipelines..

INTRODUCTION

Taiwan is located on the circum-pacific earthquake belt, one damaging earthquake could be expected every ten
years on average. The great Chi-Chi earthquake (magnitude 7.3) that took place on September 21, 1999 was
particularly destructive. As a result, the central part of Taiwan was hit very hard. Overall, more than 2,490
persons were killed, and 11,300 were severely injured. About 51,753 buildings totally collapsed, and 54,406
partially collapsed (NFA, 2003). According to the Directorate-General of Budget (2003), Accounting and
Statistics, Executive Yuan, ROC, the direct economic loss amounted to 360 billion NT dollars （1.1 billion US
dollars）using data up to February, 2000. The earthquake has great influence on the living and development of
Taiwan’s society.

Among the damage caused by the earthquake, the water delivery systems were also badly affected. Both the
water treatment facilities and underground pipelines suffered widespread damage. According to the
investigation conducted by the National Science Council of ROC (Shih et al., 1999), many water treatment
facilities were out of order after the earthquake. As for underground pipelines, Wang (2000) attempted to
review the causes of damage, and his finding is shown in Figure 1. The main causes for break and ruptures of
water pipelines were vibration/ground shaking (48%), vertical ground movement (16%), and ground collapses
(11%) with other minor factors including ground cracking and opening, horizontal ground movement, and
liquefaction (Shih et al., 2000a; data from Wang, 2000). However, this result was summarized from the
repairing work orders which were filled by workers of the repairing teams. Its correctness was doubted because
the worker’s seismic knowledge was limited.

Due to great seismic hazards, earthquake loss estimation is especially important for Taiwan government’s
countermeasures. Taiwan Earthquake Loss Estimation System (TELES), similar to HazUS, was then
developed for this purpose. However, the original fragility functions employed by HazUS should be verified
and adjusted according to the local condition of Taiwan. The Chi-Chi earthquake provided such a chance (Shih
et al., 2000b). One goal of this paper was intended to examine the previous HazUS empirical formula for

1
Associate Professor, Dep. Civil Eng., National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei, Taiwan.

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predicting the damage of underground pipelines in a major earthquake. With the aid of a GIS system, we
applied two different methods to derive the fragility relations of repair rates of PVC water pipes having nominal
diameter (φ) (approximately inner diameter) >=65mm (for nominal diameter (φ) =65mm: thickness=4.5mm,
outer diameter=76mm, inner diameter=67mm) with respect to the peak ground acceleration and peak ground
velocity.

STUDY AREA

Since the digitized maps of water supply pipelines were not available before the Chi-Chi earthquake, it was quite
difficult to carry out the vulnerability analysis for the whole disastrous area. In order to study the representative
fragility functions, 11 cities/townships was chosen as the study area, which were Juolan Jen, Dungshr Jen,
Shrgang Shiang, Fengyuan City, Wufeng Shiang, Puli Jen, Lukang Jen, Fusing Shiang, Huatan Shiang, Mingjian
Shiang and Touliu City (Figure 2). Among them, 6 are passed through by the Chelungpu fault while the rest
are more than 12 km from the fault. A geographic information system (GIS) database using MapInfo was
established for analysis. We digitized each segment of water pipelines from the construction blueprints, along
with length, material and nominal diameter, provided by the Taiwan Water Supply Corporation (TWSC). The
repair data collected from the field investigation and TWSC were also digitized into the GIS.

STUDY METHODS AND FINDINGS

1. Distribution of pipe length and material

The water pipelines in the study area were made of several kinds of materials; polyvinyl chloride (PVC), ductile
iron (DI), cast iron (CI), steel (S), polyethylene (PE) and others. Since the pipes with nominal diameters (φ)
less than 65mm were mostly used in connecting the water distribution pipelines to the customers and TWSC did
not sketch the real length of these connecting pipes, we only counted for pipes larger than 65mm. The
possession ratio of different materials was shown in Figure 3. The length and repair numbers for each pipe
material was listed in Table 1. The previous research revealed that the damage number of smaller pipes
(φ<65mm) were about 4 times of larger ones (φ>=65mm) (Shih, 2002). We found that the ratio of pipe length
(φ>=65mm) to street length for population less than 100 thousand was about one, however, for larger cities the
ratios reached beyond 1.6 like Fengyuan and Chiayi cities as shown in Table 2 and Figure 4. It is not surprising
because the usage of tap water was almost 100% in Taiwan’s urban, and TWSC added new pipes beneath the
street rather than replacing old pipes by larger ones to meet the need for a growing population. In Taiwan, the
population of small towns and cities didn’t increase or even declined in recent 20 years due to the centralization
to big cities. Therefore, for small cities in Taiwan the street layout can be regarded as the layout of water pipes
(φ>=65mm). This finding might be useful for future earthquake loss estimation because we can adopt street
length directly as pipe length since the digitized street maps are already available for whole Taiwan’s towns and
cities. We can also reasonably estimate the damaged number of customer connecting pipes (φ<65mm) as 4
times of larger ones (φ>=65mm) without tedious digitizing and calculation.

2. Fragility Analysis of PVC Water Pipelines

Since the majority of pipes was made of PVC, we carried out our analysis only for φ>=65mm PVC pipes. The
nominal diameters of PVC water pipes were from 25mm (1”) to 500mm (20”). The PVC pipe joints were
made by stuffing a glue-coated portion of one pipe into a heated end of another pipe; thus, we assumed the joint
as a continuous portion of the pipe body and ignored the joint effect. Since the peak ground acceleration (PGA)
and peak ground velocity (PGV) were the most widely used seismic parameters for fragility functions and the
East-West direction of these two parameters was the largest during the Chi-Chi earthquake, we adopted the E-W
component of PGA and PGV as ground shaking parameters like the reference by Chen et al. (2002). These
PGA and PGV values were obtained from National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering (NCREE).
The PGA, PGV and coordinates of the strong ground motion stations in the study area were listed in Table 3.

2.1. Analysis by considering one town as a unit (township analysis in brief)

In the disastrous area of the Chi-Chi earthquake, nearly one town/city has a strong ground motion station
instrumented in an elementary school, usually located in a populated district. In our study area, night among
eleven cities/towns have one strong ground motion station individually. Only Dungshr Jen has no station but it
is very close to Shrgang Shiang; therefore, these two towns were considered as an unit. Fengyuan, which is a
big city, had two stations, it was then separated into two town units denoted as east and west sides. Therefore,
we could conduct regression analysis by using ground shaking parameters recorded directly from stations other

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than from interpolation process. The repair rate was calculated by dividing the repair numbers by the pipe
length for each town/city unit. Regression analysis was carried out and the results were as follows,
log (RR) = 1.10*log(PGA) - 3.05 (R2=0.77) (1)
log (RR) = 1.57*log(PGV) - 3.52 (R2=0.69) (2)
in which, RR=number of repairs/km, PGA=cm/s2 and PGV=cm/s, respectively, and R2=square of the multiple
correlation coefficient.

2.2. Analysis by considering circular zone for each strong ground motion station
Since there were 11 strong ground motion stations in our study area and all of them were located in populated
districts, we could narrow down the area for calculating repair rate in regression analysis and adopt ground
shaking parameters recorded directly from stations. This might be more reliable than methods mentioned
above. A circular zone with a station as its center and 2 km in diameter was considered as a basic regression
unit. This was selected by attempting different diameters, 1 km, 1.5 km. 2 km, 2.5 km, 3 km and 4 km, and
checking the size parameters suggested by Toprak (1998) as well as the resulted R-squared values. The repair
rate was calculated by dividing the repair numbers by the pipe length for each circular zone. The regression
results were as follows,
log (RR) = 1.66*log(PGA) – 4.7 (R2=0.91) (3)
log (RR) = 2.55*log(PGV) – 5.3 (R2=0.71) (4)
where, RR, PGA and PGV have the same units as equations (1) and (2)

2.3 Previous analysis by using grid cells (Shih, 2002)

The water delivery blueprints and the repair data of Dungshr Jen, Shrgang Shiang, Fengyuan City, Wufeng
Shiang and Puli Jen were completed in 2000 and 2001. Therefore previous analysis was carried out only for
these five towns by using grid cells. All water pipes with φ>=65mm were considered in the analysis. Since
PVC possessed about 80%, the results of all water pipes should be close to PVC only. Each city/town was
divided into 1km x 1km grid cells after comparing different grid sizes with respect to the threshold area coverage
value suggested by Toprak (1998). The PGA and PGV values at the center of each grid were calculated by linear
interpolation from the records of strong ground motion stations. Figure 5 showed the grid cells, water pipelines,
and locations of repairs and strong ground motion stations at Fengyuan City. In order to perform regression
analysis, the grid cells were categorized into groups according to their PGA/PGV values. Each group was
made up of grid cells with PGA falling in an interval of 50 cm/s2 starting from 100 cm/s2 or 20 cm/s for PGV
starting from 40 cm/s, respectively. For each group, the repair rate (RR, number of repairs/km) was calculated
by dividing the total repair numbers by the total pipe length of grid cells forming that group and PGA/PVG was
taken as the average value from that group. The regression analysis for RR with respect to PGA/PGV based on
groups was then conducted. The results were as below,
log (RR) = 2.13*log(PGA) – 6.1 (R2=0.4) (5)
log (RR) = 3.79*log(PGV) – 7.7 (R2=0.62) (6)
where, RR, PGA and PGV have the same units as equations (1) and (2).

CONCLUSIONS

In this study, the seismic vulnerability functions for PVC water pipelines were established by the 1999 Chi-Chi,
Taiwan earthquake experience. Good correlation between repair rate and PGA/PGV was observed.
The fragility curves of equations (1), (3), (5) and Toprak (1998) for RR versus PGA was drawn in Figure 6.
Toprak equation was derived from cast iron pipes while our study focused on PVC pipes. Cast iron pipes
usually have larger diameter than PVC ones. Therefore, the lower fragility of Toprak equation than our PVC
results was reasonable. This trend could also be observed from Table 1, although the database of cast iron pipes
was not sufficient for an effective regression analysis.

Figure 7 showed the fragility curves of equations (2), (4), (6) and HazUS (1999) for RR versus PGV. HazUS
equations, taken from O’Rourke and Ayala (1993), were for ductile and brittle materials. Because PVC pipes
were regarded as ductile in HAZUS manual, a simple comparison could be made as the following. In the
Chi-Chi earthquake, the PVC water pipelines did not suffer so much as HazUS predicted; however, the
difference was not quite significant.

Statistically, the PGA had better correlation with the damage of PVC water pipelines than the PGV. For a

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scenario earthquake event, we recommended the fragility equation of log(RR)=1.66*log(PGA)–4.70 and
log(RR)=2.55*log(PGV)– 5.30 as the damage estimation for PVC pipelines with nominal diameter larger than or
equal to 65mm.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was partially supported by the National Science Council of Taiwan under Grant
NSC-90-2625-Z-027-002 and NSC-91-2625-Z-027-002. The efforts of establishing the database by Po-Heng
Wang, Ju-Huang Hung, Wei-Shung Wang, Liang-Yen Yu and Chen-Ru Lin, former graduate students at the
National Taipei University of Technology was greatly appreciated.

REFERENCES

Chen, W.W, Shih, B.J., Chen, Y.C., Hung, J.H., Hwang, Howard H. (2002). “Seismic Response of Natural Gas
and Water Pipelines in the Ji-Ji Earthquake,” Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, p1209-1214.
Directorate-General of Budget (2003), Accounting and Statistics, Executive Yuan, ROC,
http://www.dgbasey.gov.tw/
HAZUS (1999). “Technical Manual, Earthquake Loss Estimation Methodology,” Federal Emergency
Management Agency, Chapter 8.
National Fire Administration (2003), Ministry of Interior, Executive Yuan, ROC, http://www.nfa.gov.tw/
O’Rourke, M.J., Ayala, G. (1993). “Pipeline Damage due to Wave Propagation,” J Geotech Engng., 119（9）,
pp.1490-1498.
Shih, B.J. (2002). “Renewed Damage Data and GIS Analysis of Lifelines in the 921 Chi-Chi Earthquake (I),”
Research Report Sponsored by National Science Council, ROC, NSC 90-2625-Z-027-002. (Written in
Chinese)
Shih, B.J., Chen, W.W., Wang, P.H., Chen, Y.C., and Liu, S.Y. (2000a). “Water System and Natural Gas Pipeline
Damages in the Ji-Ji Earthquake—Calculating Repair Rates,” Proceedings of the Taiwan-Japan Workshop on
Lifeline Performance and Disaster Mitigation During Recent Big Earthquakes in Taiwan and Japan, June
29-30, Tainan, Taiwan, pp.63-72.
Shih, B.J., Chen, W.W., Chang, T.C., Liu, S.Y. (2000b). “Water System Damages in the Ji-Ji Earthquake - A GIS
Application,” Proceedings of the Six International conference on Seismic Zonation, Nov. 12-15, Palm
Springs, CA, USA.
Shih, B.J. et al. (1999). “The 921 Ji-Ji Earthquake Investigation Report, Lifeline Damage,” National Center for
Research on Earthquake Engineering, NCREE-99-056. (Written in Chinese)
Toprak, S. (1998). “Earthquake Effects on Buried Lifeline Systems,” PHD Dissertation, Cornell University.
Wang, B. (2000). “The Damage Report of Public Water System after the Ji-Ji Earthquake,” Journal of Water
Supply, Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 64-81. (Written in Chinese)

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 Table 1. The length and repair numbers for each pipe material in the study area

Dungshr Jen and Shrgang

Town Juolan Jen Fengyuan City
Shiang
Pipe Material Repair Length(m) Repair Length(m) Repair Length(m)
Numbers Numbers Numbers
PVC 332 71,210 101 177,380 389 654,630
Cast Iron 0 1,180 0 4,060 5 11,730
Ductile Iron 2 11,130 0 24,400 5 71,510
Steel, PE and others 1 12,060 3 4,770 104 64,550
Total 335 95,580 104 210,610 503 802,420
PVCP(φ>=65mm) 147 52,520 65 151,340 80 311,500
Population(2003) 19,307 72,365 162,386
Town Wufeng Shiang Puli Jen Lukang Jen and Fusing Shiang
Pipe Material Repair Length(m) Repair Length(m) Repair Length(m)
Numbers Numbers Numbers
PVC 886 200,870 222 229,100 30 347,450
Cast Iron 20 8,130 0 3,390 0 110
Ductile Iron 11 35,010 5 21,710 4 32,170
Steel, PE and others 34 130 0 1,160 0 0
Total 951 244,140 227 255,360 34 379,730
PVCP((>=65mm) 120 148,830 41 191,000 25 294,450
Population(2003) 65,353 87,331 132,946
Town Huatan Shiang Mingjian Shiang Touliu City
Pipe Material Repair Length(m) Repair Length(m) Repair Length(m)
Numbers Numbers Numbers
PVC 26 189,960 260 163,760 194 352,820
Cast Iron 0 0 28 18,220 2 540
Ductile Iron 4 10,020 124 73,070 0 23,640
Steel, PE and others 5 6,410 0 4,190 1 18,980
Total 35 206,390 412 259,240 197 395,980
PVCP((>=65mm) 21 164,220 197 105,430 19 240,920
Population(2003) 46,191 42,758 103,055

Table 2. The relationship between population, pipe length and street length
Town Population Pipe Length（m） Street Length（m）Pipe Length (φ>=65mm) /
(2003) (φ>=65mm) Street Length

Juolan Jen 19,307 76,890 95,460 0.81

Dungshr Jen 57,006 138,400 128,150 1.08
Shrgang Shiang 15,359 46,170 48,090 0.96
Fengyuan City 162,386 459,290 253,420 1.81
Wufeng Shiang 65,353 192,100 232,270 0.83
Puli Jen 87,331 217,260 249,720 0.87
Lukang Jen 84,354 193,240 197,180 0.98
Fusing Shiang 48,592 133,490 166,860 0.80
Huatan Shiang 46,191 180,650 159,870 1.13
Mingjian Shiang 42,758 200,910 179,910 1.12
Touliu City 103,055 284,080 319,190 0.89
Chiayi City 266,684 583,950 356,630 1.64

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 Table 3. The PGA, PGV and coordinates of the strong ground motion stations in the study area
Strong Ground Coordinates PGA_UD PGA_NS PGA_EW PGV_UD PGV_NS PGV_EW
Town
Motion Station Tm2_x(m) Tm2_y(m) (g) (g) (g) (cm/s) (cm/s) (cm/s)
Juolan Jen TCU087 227,000.9 2,693,610.5 0.0929 0.1139 0.1215 58.27 43.94 42.59
Shrgang Shiang and
TCU068 226,209.9 2,685,840.7 0.53 0.3718 0.5118 228.67 291.31 280.55
Dungshr Jen
East Side of Fengyuan
TCU101 220,448.6 2,681,827.5 0.1684 0.2596 0.2149 46.15 52.97 76.34
City
West Side of Fengyuan
TCU102 221,651.9 2,682,655.7 0.1769 0.1724 0.3045 67.87 71.77 88.17
City
Wufeng Shiang TCU065 218,576 2,661,601 0.263 0.5748 0.7893 68.9 90.02 132.38
Puli Jen TCU074 246,098.7 2,650,676.8 0.2757 0.3759 0.5979 24.95 48.69 70.24
Huatan Shiang TCU123 203,476 2,657,064.4 0.0874 0.1348 0.1521 26.19 35.97 47.99
Lukang Jen and Fusing
TCU112 191,370.5 2,661,354.4 0.0666 0.0718 0.0796 19.18 41.01 35.54
Shiang
Mingjian Shiang WNT 217,853.2 2,641,594 0.3171 0.6143 0.9394 31.15 33.55 58.9
Touliu City WGK 205,346.3 2,620,345.3 0.1792 0.4551 0.3454 26.44 102.21 62.54

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 Vibration/Ground Shaking
Liquefaction
Ground Collapse
Ground Cracking and Opening
Horizontal Ground Movement
Vertical Ground Movement
Other

Figure 1. The reasons of failure for water pipelines (Shih et al., 2000; data from Wang, 2000)

Chelungpu Fault

▲Strong Ground
Motion Stations

Figure 2. The study area for seismic vulnerability functions

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 Ductile Iron 14%
Steel, PE and others
5%

Cast Iron 2% PVC

Cast Iron

Ductile
Iron
Steel, PE
and others
PVC 79%

Figure 3. Material distribution of water delivery pipes (φ>=65mm)

1.8
Pipe length(φ>=65mm)/Street length

1.6

1.4

1.2

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Population (ten thousand)

Figure 4. Pipe length/street length vs. population

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 •Repair Locations
▲Strong Ground
Motion Stations
−Water Pipelines
…Town Boundaries

Chelungpu Fault

Figure 5. The grid cells, water pipelines, and locations of repairs and strong ground motion
stations at Fengyuan City

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 10

by Circular Zone of Strong Motion

Station for PVC Pipes (φ>=65mm)
log(RR)=1.66*log(PGA)-4.70

Empirical Equation for Water Pipes

(φ>=65mm) (Shih, 2002)
log(RR)=2.13*log(PGA)-6.1

1
Repair Ratio(number/km)

by Township Analysis for PVC

Pipes (φ>=65mm)
log(RR)=1.1*log(PGA)-3.05

0.1

Toprak(1998) Equation for Cast

Iron Pipes
log(RR)=1.1*log(PGA)-4.12

0.01
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000

PGA(cm/sec^2)
Figure 6. Seismic fragility curves of repair rate vs. PGA

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 10
Empirical Equation for Water Pipes
(φ>=65mm) (Shih, 2002)
log(RR)=3.79*log(PGV)-7.7

HazUS Equation for brittle

Pipes
log(RR)=2.25*log(PGV)-4.0

HazUS Equation for Ductile

Pipes
log(RR)=2.25*log(PGV)-4.5

1
Repair Ratio(number/km)

by Circular Zone of Strong Motion

Station for PVC Pipes (φ>=65mm)
log(RR)=2.55*log(PGV)-5.30

0.1
by Township Analysis for PVC
Pipes (φ>=65mm)
log(RR)=1.57*log(PGV)-3.52

0.01
20 40 60 80 100 120 140
PGV(cm/sec)
Figure 7. Seismic fragility curves of repair rate vs. PGV

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