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WELDING RESEARCH

Steel-Reinforced Polyethylene Pipe: Extrusion

Welding, Investigation, and Mechanical Testing
The effects of welding methods, with and without preheat
conditions, on weld quality were investigated by visual and
radiographic inspections,and crystalline analysis

BY C. TIPPAYASAM AND A. KAEWVILAI

ABSTRACT
This work presents extrusion welding with a square butt
joint of V-shaped steel-reinforced polyethylene (SRPE) cor-
rugated pipe. The SRPE pipe was welded in a single pass on
the inside of the pipe. The welding temperature was
controlled at 190°–200°C. The welding extruder was
modified for controlling the travel speed and preheating Fig. 1 — Steel-reinforced polyethylene corrugated pipe (double-
conditions for welding. A high-density polyethylene (HDPE) wall V-shaped profile).
rod was used as the welding filler metal, which was
inserted into the extruder with a speed of 2.20 m/min. been appropriate for underground applications, it also has
Welding progressed downhill from the overhead position
high ductility and low stiffness, which causes an unstable
with a travel speed of 3.0 cm/min. The effects of welding
methods, with and without preheat conditions, on the weld shape when it receives highly compressive forces (Refs. 3, 4).
quality were investigated by visual and radiographic inspec- Recently, the strength of HDPE pipe has been improved by
tions. From the results, the preheated welding condition methods such as increasing the wall thickness, spiral shape de-
showed complete fusion of the weld without any defects, signs, and reinforcements such as fiberglass and ceramic, etc.
while that of the nonpreheat exhibited a great number of (Refs. 3–5).
voids inside the weld. The crystal structures of the Steel-reinforced polyethylene (SRPE) corrugated pipe is a
preheated and nonpreheated welds were analyzed with an kind of sandwich composite consisting of HDPE and galva-
x-ray diffractometer and compared with the HDPE base ma- nized steel (Refs. 6, 7). The internal and external walls are cov-
terial. From mechanical testing, the weld from the preheat ered by HDPE, and the center layer is reinforced with galva-
condition showed a good ability to endure the tension force
nized steel with V and U spiral shapes (Refs. 8, 9), as shown in
of 46 MPa and compressive stress of up to 0.41 MPa at 5%
deflection. In addition, it was found the welded SRPE could Fig. 1. The SRPE has many advantages from the combined
tolerate hydrostatic pressure of up to 0.18 MPa without any properties of HDPE and reinforced steel, such as high stiff-
water leakage when being used as a water-containing tank. ness, high corrosion resistance, and better flexibility with
steady structure (Refs. 8–10). As a result, there has been inter-
est in using SRPE for underground applications such as
drainage/sewage pipes and water storage tanks (Refs. 8–10).
KEYWORDS For fabrication and connection uses, SRPE is simple to weld at
the HDPE joint by heating-fusion processes such as electrofu-
• Steel-Reinforced Polyethylene Pipe
sion belt, elastomeric seal, and heated tool welding (Refs.
• Extrusion Welding • Preheat
11–14). However, these techniques are suitable for butt-joint
welding on the outside of the pipe. It is difficult for completely
Introduction welding on the inside of the pipe and other joints such as lap,
corner, and T-shaped joints.
High-density polyethylene (HDPE) pipe, well known as a Extrusion welding is a thermal technique developed from
type of thermoplastic pipe, is used instead of concrete and hot gas/air welding for melting and joining thermoplastics and
steel pipes for many applications, such as gas and fluid trans- their composites (Refs. 14–18). The filler rod-based thermo-
fers, water/sewage drainages, and electrical and communica- plastic material is heated and extruded into a molten form at
tion conduits (Refs. 1–3). The HDPE pipe shows many excel- the joint area, which is welded after cooling. It also allows a
lent properties, such as light weight, chemical resistance, and large welding area with a single pass and good penetration
tolerance for decomposition (Ref. 4). Although HDPE pipe has (Refs. 19–20). Hot melt extrusion welding can be performed

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3.0 cm/min and 200 rpm, respectively. After that, the SRPE
was welded in a single pass on the inside of the pipe from an
overhead position with downhill progression.
After welding, the shape, dimension, and quality of the
welds were inspected by visual testing (VT) according to Amer-
ican Welding Society (AWS) Standard G1.10M:2001, Guide for
the Evaluation of Hot Gas, Hot Gas Extrusion, and Heated Tool
Butt Thermoplastic Welds (Ref. 22). The inside welds were in-
vestigated by radiographic testing (RT) using a phosphor imag-
ing plate (D7 class) and the exposure parameters of 20 kV, 2
mA, 40 s, and the FFD of 700 mm. The radiographic images
Fig. 2 — Welding extruder (Ref. 21). were developed by a computed scanner. After that, the welded
specimens were characterized by XRD using Cu-K as the radi-
by a manual welder or with semiautomation, and can weld on ation source ( = 1.54 Å) and 2 ranging from 10 to 40 deg
both the inside and outside of the pipe with various joint de- with a scanning rate of 0.2 1/s. The crystallinity was deter-
signs. The weld quality from extrusion could be controlled by mined from the integrated area of amorphous and crystalline
welding parameters such as welding temperature, flow rate, as follows: %crystallinity (XC) = AC/(AC + AA), where AC and AA
and extrusion speed (Refs. 19, 20). are the crystalline and amorphous areas, respectively (Refs.
Based on our knowledge, the effects of preheating condi- 23–25). The crystalline thickness of the lamella was calculated
tion on weld quality, crystallinity, and strength of SRPE in ex- by Scherrer equation as follows: t = K/cos where t is the
trusion welding have not been reported. Therefore, this work mean size of the ordered (crystalline) domains, which may be
presents welding of V-shaped SRPE pipe (1200 mm diameter) smaller or equal to the grain size; K is a dimensionless shape
by manual extrusion with preheat. The modified extruder factor, which has a typical value of 0.89;  is the x-ray wave-
with the preheat function was used for controlling heating length; and  is the line broadening at half the maximum in-
conditions before welding. The effects of welding methods, tensity after subtracting the instrumental line broadening in
with and without preheat conditions, on weld quality and the radians. This quantity is also sometimes denoted as D(2);  is
crystalline structure were also studied. In addition, the me- the Bragg angle (Ref. 26).
chanical properties of the weld were further tested for consid-
ering the possibility of using welded pipe in unground applica- Mechanical Testing
tions such as water storage and sewage/drainage pipes.
The tensile specimen was prepared from SRPE welded in
Experimental Procedures the conditions of preheating and nonpreheating. The welded
specimens were prepared as a rectangular strip with the di-
Materials and Instruments mensions of 25 × 150 × 10 mm (three samples were used per
each condition), which was used to analyze the tensile
Steel-reinforced polyethylene corrugated pipe (V-shaped strength of the weld (Ref. 20). The tensile strengths of the
double-wall pipe) with a diameter of 1200 mm (Refs. 8, 9) welded specimens were tested by UTM, and then the broken
and 3.5-mm-diameter HDPE rod were supported by SR.PE areas and types of fracture of the welded specimens were con-
GROUP Co. Ltd. The welding extruder produced from sidered to determine the quality of the weld (Refs. 20, 27, 28).
Metabo was modified with a servomotor and preheat func- For the stiffness test, the welded SRPE pipes were applied
tion (Refs. 20, 21) as shown in Fig. 2. An infrared ther- by a compression load at 5% deflection according to American
mosensor (PROSKIT, MT-4612) was used for detecting the Society for Testing Materials Standard F2435-15 (ASTM
actual temperature of welding. The x-ray radiographic tester F2435-15) and Thai Industrial Standard 2764-2559 (TIS
was a product from General Electric Co. The crystal struc- 2764-2559) for considering the strength of the welded SRPE
tures of the welds were analyzed by an x-ray diffractometer (Refs. 8, 9). The pipe stiffness was calculated from the equa-
(XRD; a Philips X-Pert-MPD x-ray diffractometer). The ten- tion as follows: Stiffness = F/(L × DY), where F = compressive
sile strength and stiffness of the welded specimens were force (N), D = length of specimen (mm), and DY = changes in
tested, respectively, by a universal testing machine (UTM; vertical deflection (mm) (Refs. 8, 9). Finally, the welded pipe
Chengde Precision) and compressive tester (JINGMI). was sealed at both ends and then filled with water into the lid-
ded pipe for testing water leakage and hydrostatic pressure.
Welding and Investigation
Results and Discussion
The SRPE pipes were prepared in a squared butt-joint con-
figuration with a root opening of 5.0 mm and welded by extru- Welding and Investigation
sion at the tacking positions of 0, 90, 180, and 270 deg, re-
spectively. Before welding, the joint was prepared in the fol- From visual inspection, the welded pipes from the pre-
lowing two conditions: 1) welding with preheating at 150°C heat and nonpreheat conditions exhibited good welds and
and 2) welding without preheating. The HDPE rod was insert- displayed complete joint penetration without defects and
ed into the hot air extruder with the rate of 2.20 mm/min and discontinuities at the surface — Fig. 3. The size of the
the controlled temperature of 190°–200°C during the welding width, convexity, and root of the weld were found to be ap-
period. The travel speed and extruder speed were controlled at proximately 32.0, 5.0, and 1.0 mm, respectively. The average

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sizes of the welded pipes were measured and summarized in

Table 1 and were in the range according to TIS 2764-2559 A
and AWS G1.10M:2001 (Refs. 9, 22).
From the radiographic tests (Fig. 4), the x-ray images of
welded specimens from the preheat and nonpreheat condi-
tions showed the three contrast zones, such as dark black,
black, and bright black, which were assigned as the areas of
HDPE, steel-reinforced HDPE, and weld, respectively. The x-
ray image of the preheated welded specimen (Fig. 4A)
showed the complete weld without any defects observed
along with the welded areas. For the x-ray image of speci-
mens from the nonpreheat welding, it was found the HDPE
and steel-reinforced HDPE zones had no defect and a
smooth surface, but the welded area showed the discontin-
ues that formed inside the welded material as shown in Fig.
4B. These volumetric indicators inside the nonpreheated B
weld were assigned as a void that came from impurities such
as moisture, as well as volatile and processing additives (in-
cluding the immediate shrinkage of the weld). This caused
the high cooling rate in nonpreheat welding and generated
the void in the material at a high temperature. From the RT
result, it indicated the preheated condition could eliminate
these impurities and also soften the material during the
welding process, which solved the problems of any defects
inside the weld.
Phase components of the welded SRPE at the welded area
and HDPE base were characterized by x-ray diffraction. The
XRD patterns of the HDPE base and welds obtained from
preheated and nonpreheated welding exhibited the diffrac-
tion peaks as shown in Fig. 5A–C, respectively. C
The characteristic peaks of all specimens appeared at the
2 of 21.4 and 23.7 deg corresponding to the diffraction
planes of (110) and (200), respectively. These diffraction
peaks agreed with the orthorhombic structure of HDPE as
reported elsewhere (Refs. 23, 29). In addition, the XRD
showed the broad peak at 2 approximately 20 deg, which
was typically assigned to the amorphous phase of HDPE. It
confirmed that the structure of the HDPE base before and
after welding consisted of the semicrystalline structure of
both amorphous and crystalline phases. Moreover, it was
found that the broad peak of the specimens after being
welded was significantly changed into the more sharper
shape, similar to the other crystalline peaks in the pattern.
It indicated the hot extrusion welding changed the crys-
tallinity and lamellar crystalline size of HDPE. Therefore,
the amorphous characteristics and crystallinity of the welds, Fig. 3 — The generality of welded SRPE: A — Cross section;
including the size of lamellar crystalline, were considered. B — inside; C — outside.
The % crystallinity and lamellar crystalline size of the weld-
ed SRPE and HDPE base were calculated and summarized in (64.65%) than that of the preheated (65.80%) and nonpre-
Table 2. heated welds (70.15%). By the Scherrer equation, the calcu-
From the crystallinity calculation results, it was found lated size of lamellar at the plane of (111) of the HDPE base,
that the HDPE at the base showed lower crystallinity for both preheated and nonpreheated welds, were found to

Table 1 — Visual Inspection of Welded SRPE Pipe

Welding Conditions Inside Diameter Outside Diameter Pitch Range Wall Thickness Weld Size (mm) Weld
(mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) Convex Width Root Defect
Internal Total

Preheat 1201.0 1332.0 154.7 5.20 10.09 5.15 32.20 1.00 No defect
Nonpreheat 1201.1 1332.2 154.7 5.25 10.10 5.05 32.50 0.95 No defect

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A B

Fig. 4 — X-ray images of welded SRPE from welding with the following: A — Preheat; B — nonpreheat.

HDPE base, which might indicate the welding process with-

out preheating condition could not control the crystallinity
and crystallite size of materials. In the case of the preheated
weld, it was found that the crystallinity and crystallite size
were close to those of the HDPE base, which might demon-
C strate that the preheated welding could control the crystal
structure by reducing heat loss and the cooling rate during
welding.

Mechanical Testing
B
The tensile testing results of the welded specimens from
preheating and nonpreheating were compared as shown in
Fig. 6. The tensile strength (Fig. 6A) of the welded speci-
mens from the preheated and nonpreheated conditions was
A found to be 46.04 and 31.01 MPa, respectively. The elonga-
tion at the break (Fig. 6B) of the welded specimens from
welding with and without preheat was found to be 98.53
and 64.13%, respectively.
In addition, the types of failures (ductile and brittle rup-
Fig. 5 — XRD patterns of welded SRPE: A — HDPE base; B — tures) in the welded specimens after testing were considered
preheated weld; C — nonpreheated weld. for the weld quality of the joint (Refs. 20, 27, 28). The results
showed the welded specimens from the preheated condition
be 29.70, 28.72, and 24.30 nm, respectively. At the plane of had good joint quality because they showed ductile ruptures
(200), the crystallite size of the HDPE base, preheated and after breaking at the base position of the test specimens, out-
nonpreheated welds, was found to be 28.76, 27.45, and side the welding area — Fig. 7A. It indicated preheat welding
22.94 nm, respectively. These results indicated the lamellar could control weld quality, crystallinity, and crystallite size of
size of the weld was decreased after welding while the crys- the weld. For the welding without the preheat condition, it was
tallinity was increased. The crystallinity and crystallite size found that the specimens exhibited brittle ruptures and were
of the nonpreheated weld was extremely changed from the broken at the welding area, which indicated the joint in the

Table 2 — XRD Result of Welded Pipe

Specimens 2 (deg) Plane Lamellar Crystallite Size (nm) % Crystallinity

Base 21.4 (110) 29.70 64.65%
23.7 (200) 28.76

Preheated Weld 21.4 (110) 28.62 65.80%

23.7 (200) 27.45

Nonpreheated Weld 21.4 (110) 24.30 70.15%

23.7 (200) 22.94

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A B
g

g
Fig. 6 — The tension testing results: A — Tensile strength; B — elongation of specimens from welding conditions of preheat and
nonpreheat.

A B

Fig. 7 — The welded specimens after tension test: A — Preheated specimens; B — nonpreheated specimens.

nonpreheated specimens had poor quality as shown in Fig. 7B. at the weld and base material observed by water leakage
This was due to the void that formed inside the weld, which testing. In addition, we found the welded SRPE pipe could
decreased the strength of the welded specimens. From the endure hydrostatic pressure up to 0.18 MPa without any wa-
compressive test (Table 3), the pipe specimens from welding, ter leakage — Fig. 8. After testing by using the pressure over
with and without preheat conditions, revealed stiffness of 0.41 0.18 MPa, it was found the water was able to leak out from
MPa at the stress of 5% deflection according to ASTM F2412- the internal pipe wall near the reinforced steel. From these
15 and TIS 2764-2559 (Refs. 8, 9). Moreover, the test speci- results, it might be concluded the welded SRPE pipe could be
mens were further tested at the high stress of 40% deflections, used for water drainage, sewage, water supply industrials,
and it was found the welded specimens could stand without and nonpressure applications.
cracking at the weld and base areas. This could explain that the
compressive force was dispersed by the strength of the rein- Conclusions
forced steel; therefore, the weld and HDPE base received no
damage. Steel-reinforced polyethylene (SRPE) corrugated pipe
For the water leak and hydrostatic pressure tests, the was welded by extrusion welding in preheated and nonpre-
SRPE pipe welded at both cover lids was filled with water heated conditions. From visual and radiographic inspec-
and kept for four weeks. The sealed tank showed no leakage tions, the welded SRPE from the preheated condition exhib-

Table 3 — Pipe Stiffness Testing Result

Welding Conditions Specimen Size (mm) Load at 5% ID after Test Pipe Stiffness at
ID Length Deflection (N) (mm) 5% Deflection (MPa)
Preheat 1201.0 500.5 15,000 1128.0 0.41
Nonpreheated 1201.1 500.3 14,996 1128.8 0.41

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Fig. 8 — Hydrostatic pressure test.

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