Crack-resistant HDPE adds life to infrastructure pipelines in ChinaCrack-resistant HDPE adds life to infrastructure pipelines in China

With increasing urbanisation and continued economic growth, China is struggling to upgrade its infrastructure while utility companies are keen to adopt new solutions that speed up pipeline renovations and installations to provide a long maintenance free service lifetime. During the recent Chinaplas show in Guangzhou, Borouge (Singapore) demonstrated its new high stress, crack resistant (HSCR) PE100 material specifically designed for difficult installation conditions where it can significantly extend the lifetime of the pipeline systems.

Increasingly utility companies are turning to "No-Dig" technology to renovate their old leaking pipelines or install new ones because this technology helps saving considerable costs and reducing disruption to the community. However, using some techniques such as relining or directional drilling may cause damage or scores to the surface of the polyethylene (PE) pipe which can develop into cracks and lead to premature failure of the pipeline. In order to overcome this problem, Borouge developed a new (HSCR) PE100 polymer BorSafe HE3490-LS-H.

"This material provides a much higher resistance to crack growth than the standard PE100 materials, for example, in notched pipe tests the performance an order of magnitude, greater than the 500 hour required for standard PE100 materials," says Cindy Wang, Application Marketing Manager of Borouge.

PE 100 pipes made from BorSafe HE3490-LS-H were successfully used in the provision of a new water supply pipeline to the joint China-Singapore Eco City in Tianjin. The Tianjin TEDA water company identified a new source of water that lies on the far side of the Ji Canal. Intending to use a PE100 pipeline, they were concerned about any surface damage to the pipe that could be caused by the horizontal directional drilling installation process under the canal.

Together with its customer, Cangzhou Mingzhu Plastic Co., Borouge demonstrated the benefits of the new HSCR PE100 material to allay the concerns of the water engineers. "The section of the 4.5-km long, 800p-mm diameter pipeline installed under the canal was subsequently manufactured using Borouge's BorSafe HE3490-LS-H material and the pipeline installation was successfully completed in October 2009," commented Wang.

The new HSCR material can also be used to provide additional security in industrial applications as demonstrated in the internal lining of water injection pipelines for the Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) in the Middle East. These steel pipelines were heavily corroded and whilst replacement would be costly, the environmental risk from leakage was unacceptable and therefore the oil company opted to reline the pipes with a 'close fit' polyethylene pipe manufactured from BorSafe HE3490-LS-H using the 'swage lining' technique. The relining project was undertaken by Kuwait International Advanced Industries (KAI) and Anti-corrosion Protection Systems (APS) and was successfully completed in October 2010, providing KOC with a cost effective long term solution, which won't suffer from the same internal corrosion problems.-[email protected]