MOLECULAR-STRUCTURE, MORPHOLOGY, AND ANTIOXIDANT CONSUMPTION IN MEDIUM DENSITY POLYETHYLENE PIPES IN HOT-WATER APPLICATIONS

Changes in polymer structure and antioxidant concentration have been systematically studied as functions of temperature, hoop stress, exposure time, and location in pipe wall on pressure tested pipes of medium density polyethylene. The pressure tests have been performed with water as the internal medium and air as the external medium at temperatures in the range 80 to 105-degrees-C. Infrared spectroscopy shows that oxidation is initiated at the inner wall surface just prior to the onset of the so-called stage III fracture. X-ray diffraction and size exclusion chromatography show that oxidation involves only the amorphous phase and results in a significant molar mass reduction. The near-inner-wall material exhibits a 10% reduction in mass average molar mass before the onset of stage III fracture and thereafter a more dramatic decrease. Oxidation induction time measurements by differential scanning calorimetry show that the antioxidant concentration is almost twice as high in the center of the wall as in the near-inner-wall and outer-wall material of the unexposed pipe, that the loss of antioxidant is anomalously rapid at the beginning of the high temperature exposure, and that the antioxidant concentration profile gradually becomes more skewed towards the outer wall on prolonged exposure. The data presented in this paper are used in a parallel paper for modeling purposes.