Plastics Pipes: Opening New Dimensions [all materials]

Pipelines are the arteries of civilization. One of the greatest challenges of our age, namely the supply of clean water world-wide, cannot be resolved without plastic pipes for the efficient transport of drinking water and sewage. Of all the types of plastic suitable for this application, polyolefins are – after PVC – the most important. Their use for the production of pipes will continue to increase at an even higher rate than the already high rate of growth of plastics in general. Concrete examples of application show us why : HDPE pipes display extraordinarily good functional properties – e.g. toughness, strength, resistance to corrosion, chemicals and micro-organisms – and they can not only be readily tailored to actual requirements but also laid at relatively low cost. Furthermore, improved material properties and new designs of pipe will open up completely new areas of application which were hardly imaginable hitherto.