With rapid developments of metro construction in China

the safety evaluation of pipelines near tunneling is one of the key technical problems urgent to solve. On the basis of understanding basic laws of ground movements

an empirical or semi-empirical method of longitudinal strain calculation and safety evaluation of rigid pipelines is put forward. Generally it is not necessary to consider the details of pipelines

and only a few parameters are involved

so the method is easier to be used in engineering

and can be used to evaluate the latent damages of pipelines rapidly. The method is particularly fit for the case of no sufficient data or especial sensitive pipelines when the conservative estimations are needed.