THE INFLUENCE OF MORPHOLOGY ON THE FAILURE OF POLYETHYLENE PIPES IN HYDROSTATIC PRESSURE TESTS

摘要

Failure times of plastic and metal pipes subjected to hydrostatic pressure at various levels assist pipe manufacturers to not only design pipes for certain applications, but also to give them an indication of the useful service life-times of these pipes. In order to understand the influence exerted by semi-crystalline morphology on the failure of polyethylene pipes under hydrostatic pressure, a medium-density polyethylene resin was converted into various pipes by altering the extrusion processing conditions. These pipes were subsequently subjected to hydrostatic pressure at a constant hoop stress and the failure times were recorded. The failure times were observed to depend strongly on the morphology of the pipes.