Durability testing for 100 year lifetime for buried non-pressure plastic pipes

Paper in proceeding, 2006

For plastics pipes used for underground drainage and sewerage there is at present no internationally accepted method for the evaluation of durability. This makes it difficult to make an objective assessment for both new materials and new pipe designs entering the market. This paper presents a possible future structure of such a durability evaluation for nonpressure pipes. Based on an experimental study of pipes made from a filled and an unfilled PP material and one made from an HDPE material different damage mechanisms and changes in pipe characteristics were observed when the pipes were exposed to long-term deflection and long term (one-year) ageing at +95 °C. A CAED methodology is also described which was used to investigate the distribution and time dependence of pipe stresses.