Plastic Pipes Conference Association # 2023 Lake Buena Vista
Karin Jacobson, Daniel Ejdeholm
Plastic pipes often have much better corrosion resistance than metallic pipes and have, in addition, the benefits of low weight and flexibility. Thanks to this, they are often used to convey chemicals. There is, however, still a large potential for a much more extensive use of plastic pipes for this application. The lack of data and long-term effects of chemicals on plastic pipes are often missing and some is outdated. Many installations are thus full-scale experiments. The fact that many of these installations are very successful should be used to make new installations more fact-based. Analysing the pipes after successful long-term use of chemical transportation to draw conclusions about their behavior could be done much more often than what is found today. These results could then, when applicable, be used to up-date safety factors and recommendations. It is also important that, in case of failures, these are investigated to determine if they are due to a limitation based on intrinsic properties of the material, or due to other factors such as welding or poor installation.
The most commonly used plastic pipe material for conveying chemicals are PVC-U, PVC-C, Polyethylene, Polypropylene, Fluoroplastic and Fiber Reinforced Vinyl Esters (GRP). Even if these materials often show very good chemical resistance and often complement each other in suitability in different types of media, a negative impact on the service life might occur. It important to understand what the underlying mechanism to this loss is due to. In chemical resistance tables it is most often only given a very general description if the material is compatible or not with the media. It might be that even a material very good chemical resistance could be unsuitable in an application if diffusion through it can cause problems. And, on the other hand, a media – polymer combination that is listed as unsuitable, might be the best cost-performance option in some cases, as long as the limitations are known and controlled.
The aim of this paper is to describe and discuss the considerations that must be made when using plastic pipes for conveying chemicals. In addition, the knowledge gaps to fill for taking advantage of the large potential for a much more extensive use of plastic pipes for safe and reliable transportation of chemicals are pointed out.
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