Chemical Property of UHMWPE floating pipe 

The chemical property of UHMWPE floating pipe depends on the UHMWPE material property.

UHMWPE powder--virgin material

Ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UPE or UHMWPE) is a kind of engineering thermoplastics with more than 2.5 million viscosity-average molecular weight. 

UHMWPE floating pipe has superior performance over conventional HDPE pipe such as very high wear resistance, impact resistance, excellent resistance to internal pressure strength, resistance to environmental stress cracking, intrinsically self-lubricating, anti-adhesion, low temperature resistance and excellent chemical resistance. 

Because of above excellent properties, the UHMWPE floating pipes has the following advantages for the sand/slurry dredging project:

1, High efficiency: UHMWPE pipeline has a very low coefficient of friction and is self-lubricating, the roughness of the UHMWPE pipeline is 0.00022, while the HDPE pipeline is 0.01 and steel pipeline is 0.1. The smooth interior surfaces assure low friction loss and high flow rate. Therefore, the flow capacity of UHMWPE pipes is more than steel pipes. Under same flow rate, the UHMWPE pipes could save 20% fuel for the dredgers.

2, Wear resistant:  Higher Wear Resistance: Of all the pipe materials, UHMWPE pipes exhibit the smallest abrasion index. Of all the plastic pipes presently available, the anti-abrasion performance of UHMWPE is4 times of HDPE pipeline, 18 times higher than phenolic polymers, 6 times higher than polyamide polymers (PA66), 5 times higher than poly(tetrafluoroethylene) (PTFE) as well as being 6.6 times higher than carbon steel, 5.5 times higher than stainless steel and 27 times higher than copper, so UHMWPE pipes can profoundly increase the service lifespan of slurry pipes.

3, Anti corrosion: The UHMWPE pipeline with very stable chemical property, it is strong acid, strong base and so on. 

4, Anti impact: The impact resistance of UHMWPE pipes is 2 times of PC, and 10 times of PTFE. With good impact resistance, which could withstand the great water hammer impacts from various sand, muds and slurries.

For more details, please contact cocoyuan@buoyandpipe.com