Sudheer, Pimputkar, Michael, Mamoun
Posters - Additional Information # 2001 Munich
A new plastic piping material to augment and complement polyethylene (PE) (and newer materials such as Polyamide 11 and cross-linked PE) and extend the use of plastics to highpressure distribution piping is being developed. The scope of work consists of identification and laboratory testing of candidate materials, and scale-up to commercial availability. The creation of new materials by systematically modifying existing materials is relatively new as a technological practice. It has been made possible by using computational techniques to relate microstructure to macroscopic properties. By linking to databases containing information on the chemical structure of compounds and other databases on macroscopic engineering properties, properties can be related to structure and vice versa. Thus far, this work has resulted in the following accomplishments : (1) an ideal material has been defined, based on piping standards, materials in current use, commercially available materials, and the state of plastics technology, (2) commercial databases have been scanned for properties matching or close to the desirability criteria, and a list of candidate materials has been developed and (3) molecular characteristics indicative of macroscopic properties of interest have been identified.
