## 1 Introduction  
Steel pipes that transport water and other fluids over long distances are called pipelines. The determination of the wall thickness of pipes is an important aspect in pipeline design. To determine this thickness, the following factors are considered: the internal pressure, the effects exerted by the installation loads on the pipe itself (flexibility analysis), the effects of occasional internal loads (for example, water hammer), and the effects of occasional external loads (such as surface loads). Considering safety as well as the aforementioned factors, underground pipes installed in mining areas must support high loads (which includes the weight of the mineral hauling vehicle), and thus must be properly analysed (see Figure 1). To protect buried pipes from the loads to which they are subjected, some designers use protective jackets, e.g., corrugated steel pipes. These measures represent a significant additional cost in the projects, which is why the pipe is sometimes buried at a certain depth and in direct contact with the ground. In these cases, it must be verified that the stresses caused by dead loads and surface loads are below the allowable values of the pipe material. It is important to design the installation considering the smallest possible size of the trench and selecting filling materials incurring the lowest possible cost. Generally, trenches are composed of a pipe supported by a bed of fine sand or similar material, a lateral fill installed by means of thin compacted layers and a top fill compacted on the pipe. For this article, a finite element model is proposed within the Abaqus/CAE 2019 software environment, which considers the nonlinearity of the soil material, the nonlinearity of the contact between the pipe and the soil, the nonlinearity of the soil geometry and finally the residual lateral loads with nonlinear soil behaviour due to the compaction of the different layers in the construction stage. Model validation is performed using experimental data obtained at the University of Texas Arlington (UTA) in the Center for Underground Infrastructure Research and Education (CUIRE). This study demonstrates the importance of the proper selection of soil materials to construct a trench, as well as the importance of considering appropriate conditions for the installation of pipes. A correct selection makes it possible to reduce installation costs and allows the pipe to withstand forces below the allowable values. Varying the width of the trench and choosing a material with a higher degree of elasticity for the side fill are important factors. This study analyses other factors that can increase deflections in the pipe, such as the variation in the height of the pipe bed or the height of the top fill. Additionally, the position on the pipe of the point subjected to the greatest load is determined. The parametric analysis carried out allows us to understand the behaviour of buried pipes under stresses and deflections generated by truck traffic. In the mining industry, mined material is transported in mining trucks via haul roads. Some vehicles used in this industry can reach weights (considering both net weight and cargo weight) of up to 612 tons. Therefore, the pipes buried under the haul roads support high loads. To analyse these loads, it is not possible to use the recommendations of the AWWA M11 standard [1], since this standard only provides information for calculations with vehicles up to 35 tons, such as the AASHTO HS20 [2] or Cooper E-80. The conventional design of buried pipes is based on the maximum deflection of the pipe, which according to AWWA M11 [1] should not exceed 5%. Deflection is measured by dividing the displacement either vertically or horizontally with respect to the pipe diameter.