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John Houle: Senior Technical Consultant, PVC Pipe Industry
John Houle holds a Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Missouri and an MBA from the University of Oregon. He has more than 25 years of experience in the plastic pipe industry in applications engineering, market development, forensic analysis, technical writing, and standards development.
This document compares two pipe materials for response to “occasional surge,” a term that might not be well understood. So that everyone is on the same page, AWWA standards define “occasional surge” as:
Occasional (emergency or transient) surge pressure: Surge pressures caused by emergency operations, usually the result of malfunction (such as power failure, sudden valve closure, or system component failure).
The thinking is that an emergency event would occur at most only a few times in the life of the pipeline. For this reason, occasional surge is analyzed differently from “recurring surge” (also known as “cyclic surge”).
The polyethylene (HDPE) pipe industry is promoting their material as superior to PVC for surge pressures. The attached comparison uses the same set of design conditions to compare PVC and HDPE for occasional surge pressure. See for yourself – both products are suitable for the application, but the surge generated in the HDPE pipe is 341 psi compared to 282 psi in the PVC pipe. While both pipe materials would fare well, the additional 20% higher surge in the PE pipe might damage non-pipe components such as fittings and valves.
Click here to read.
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