There were over 577, 000 miles of polyethylene natural gas pipe and 39 million miles polyethylene water pipe service installed in the U.S. in 2008. Bimodal polyethylene fails in the long time via a creep-dominate slow crack growth process. This process is controlled by structure-property relationships that exist around the fusion bond, which may be altered by thermal treatment, surface damage, and surface degradation. Nanoindentation and atomic force spectroscopy provide methodologies to quantify the viscoelastic and viscoplastic properties of these materials at small length scales. While indentation methods do not quantitatively predict service life, they are sensitive to the local microstructure that is important for extended service life. The hardness and creep behavior of different polyethylene resins are measured as a function of strain rate. Different viscoelastic and plastic deformation models are used to model the impact of processing on the time-dependent properties of these materials.

Indentation methods to quantify bimodal polyethylene interfaces

251st National Meeting (2016)

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