The resistance to Rapid Crack Propagation (RCP) of extruded PE pressure pipe undergoes a well defined brittle-tough transition with increasing temperature. Material developers need to correlate the transition temperature with property data measured using coupon-sized samples. This paper discusses mechanisms underlying transitions in pipe specimens before presenting efforts to correlate transition temperatures of pipe with small-scale test results. A non-mechanical thermal analysis technique appears to correlate the phase transformation behaviour of raw materials with transition temperatures of extruded pipe.
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