ABSTRACT
Thin-walled metal pipes, often manufactured from corrugated sheeting, have been used in the construction of culverts and conduits since the early years of this century. These flexible pipes of relatively lightweight, lowstrength construction, can support backfills of considerable height by using the passive pressures induced in the surrounding soil as the sides try to move outwards against this soil. The high-deformation characteristics of thin-walled pipes mobilize the passive pressures to great advantage, whereas we have already seen that thick-walled, rigid pipes only have the active lateral pressure of the surrounding earth to augment their load-carrying capacity.
