Structure-Property Relationships in Polyethylene Fusion Bonds

Published

February 24, 2014

Author(s)

Aaron Forster, Kar T. Tan, Wei-Lun Ho, Donald Hunston

Abstract

Polyethylene (PE) is used significantly for a wide range of critical fluid transport applications from water to fossil fuels. The advantages of polyethylene are competi-tive cost compared to metallic pipe, lower corrosion rates, and toughness. The key to the durability of polyethylene is not only its low reactivity with the environment, but also the microstructure of the material. High performance res-ins used for piping applications are a bimodal blend of two different polyethylene molecular weights: a medium to high density linear chain and a medium density branched chain (< 10 branches per 1000 monomers). The advantage of the bimodal distribution is that the linear chains crystal-lize to provide the pipe its strength, while the branched chains resist chain pull-out giving the material exceptional slow crack growth resistance (SCG). The current research program at National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) aims to develop an un-derstanding of the viscoelastic and viscoplastic behaviors for PE resin materials as a function of temperature, pres- sure, and cooling profiles observed during the formation of butt fusion joints in polyethylene.

Proceedings Title

Proceedings of the Adhesion Society

Conference Dates

February 24-27, 2014

Conference Location

San Diego, CA, US

Conference Title

2014 Adhesion Society Meeting

Pub Type

Conferences

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Keywords

polyethylene, fusion, structure, indentation, strain hardening, slow crack growth

Citation

Forster, A. , Tan, K. , Ho, W. and Hunston, D. (2014), Structure-Property Relationships in Polyethylene Fusion Bonds, Proceedings of the Adhesion Society, San Diego, CA, US, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=915442 (Accessed November 26, 2025)