Six years of experience with uPVC pipes for sewers in West Germany

In addition to the processes of substitution in the fields of drinking water supply and drain and waste pipes for domestic and industrial application, other fields of application have been considered during the past years. Application of plastics pipes seems advantageous in those fields where the specific characteristics of plastics are dominating. An exact knowledge of physical and chemical features, combined with practical tests, is necessary in each individual field. Therefore plastics on which sufficient experience had been collected were also tested for their applicability as buried drain and sewer pipes. Those investigations began with unplasticised PVC and later on also included high-density PE. As generally known, both materials belong to the family of thermoplastics, the latter to the group of polyolefins. 

At Kunststoffwerk Gebr. Anger we began to engage ourselves with the study of the behaviour of flexible uPVC pipes for buried drain and sewer pipes in 1961. From then on we have made, at an Institute which is part of the Technical University at Munich, systematic tests giving consideration to different laying, and to external as well as internal load conditions.