The butt fusion (hot plate) welding process for polyethylene and polypropylene pipe - improvements to productivity

TWI Industrial Member Report Summary 419/1990

By M N Watson

Background

Polyolefin pipes, which are widely used for gas, water and effluent transmission and in industrial pipework, are commonly joined by butt fusion welding. This is a slow process, particularly for diameters > 250mm. This report describes experiments on two grades of polyethylene and one grade of polypropylene pipe carried out to investigate significantly reduced welding times which, it is shown, can be obtained using automatic equipment with which short plate removal times can be obtained reliably.