Li Xianmei, Fu Zhimin
Papers # 2014 Chicago
Despite the increased activity over the last few years, sewage collection and treatment are still a critical problem in rural China which leads to further pollution of water sources and other environmental concerns. This creates a major market opportunity for cost effective plastic non pressure sewage and drainage systems that are easy to handle and quick to install. At Goody Technology we have worked closely with machine manufacturers to develop cost effective twin wall corrugated sewage and drainage pipes using high modulus block polypropylene (PP-B HM) material. Previously, pipe producers produced PP-B HM twin walled corrugated pipes using corrugators that were designed for HDPE materials. Whilst the pipes were functional they did not fully exploit the much higher stiffness of the PP-B HM material. Also large diameter PP-B HM corrugated pipes (i.e. >500mm) are very difficult to produce on HDPE designed corrugators due to the different properties of the two materials. Therefore, new corrugators were developed with machine manufacturers to optimize the final product profile in terms of pipe weight, ring stiffness, impact strength and other relevant properties. Based on this work a range of large diameter PP-B HM twin wall corrugated pipes from 300mm to 1200mm in diameter have been developed which are better able to meet the market needs in China. The authors describe a number of projects where these new pipes have been used and show the economic and practical advantages compared to other products currently used in China. This will include some large diameter industrial drainage projects at a chemical plant in Hubei and in a high speed railway project in Wuhan.