Analysis of the electrofusion joining process in polyethylene gas piping systems

Fujikake, Masahisa; Fukumura, Masuo; Kitao, Koichi

doi:10.1016/s0045-7949(97)00008-4

Cited by 21 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…M. Fujikake et al [12] stated the basic temperature requirements for the EF joint as: 1) The minimum value of interface temperature between the HDPE pipe and the EF joint has to be larger than 160˚C.…”

Section: Welding Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Design and Development of a Battery Powered Electrofusion Welding System for Optical Fiber Microducts

et al. 2020

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At present, optical fiber microducts are coupled together by mechanical types of joints. Mechanical joints are thick, require a large space, and reduce the installation distance in multi-microduct installation. They may leak or explode in the blown fiber installation process. Mechanical joints are subjected to time dependent deterioration under long service times beneath the earth's surface. It may start with a small leakage, followed by damage due to water freezing inside the optical fiber microduct. Optical fiber microducts are made up of high-density polyethylene, which is considered most suitable for thermoelectric welding. For thermoelectric welding of two optical fiber microducts, the welding time should be one second, and should not cause any damage to the inner structure of the microducts that are being coupled. To fulfill these requirements, an LTspice simulation model for the welding system was developed and validated. The developed LTspice model has two parts. The first part models the power input to joule heating wire and the second part models the heat propagation inside the different layers of the optical fiber microduct and surrounding joint by using electro-thermal analogy. In order to validate the simulation results, a battery powered prototype welding system was developed and tested. The prototype welding system consists of a custom-built electrofusion joint and a controller board. A 40 volt 4 ampere-hour Li-Ion battery was used to power the complete system. The power drawn from the battery was controlled by charging and discharging of a capacitor bank, which makes sure that the battery is not overloaded. After successful welding, a pull strength test and an air pressure leakage test were performed to ensure that the welded joints met the requirements set by the mechanical joints. The results show that this new kind of joint and welding system can effectively replace mechanical joints in future optical fiber duct installations.

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Section: Welding Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A proper EF joint is preferably manufactured using an injection molding technique [7], [12], [22]. At an initial stage to validate the simulation results shown in Figure 11 and 12, an in-house prototype OFEF joint was fabricated on an aluminum mold as pictured in Figure 14.…”

Section: E Development Of Ofef Joint Samplesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design and Development of a Battery Powered Electrofusion Welding System for Optical Fiber Microducts

et al. 2020

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“…Shi et al [4] established a 1-D axisymmetric heat transfer model. Nakashiba et al [5], Nishimura et al [6], and Fujikake et al [7] investigated the temperature profiles with a finite element model. The main purpose of this study is simulation of natural-convection and heat conduction in EF joints.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimization of conjugate heat transfer in the electrofusion joint using Taguchi method

et al. 2019

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Applications of electrofusion joints for gas pipes are increasing and so study on temperature distribution in these joints have an important role in polyethylene welding. The objective of this study is assessment of optimum rate of the conjugate heat transfer in electrofusion joints. The simulations were planned based on Taguchi's L25 orthogonal array. The thermal lattice Boltzmann based on D2Q9 method was employed to simulate the flow and thermal fields. Signal-to-noise ratios analysis were carried out. The flow behaviors and the rate of heat transfer in terms of the Nusselt number have effectively changed by distance, height and radius of electrical wires inside the electrofusion joint. Finally, result analysis verified that Taguchi method achieved optimization of heat transfer rate with sufficient accuracy.

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“…There are several established techniques for joining of PE pipeline such as fusion welding, friction welding and mechanical joints, but by far the most popular method is electrofusion (EF) welding [9][10][11][12]. EF welding usually entails fitting two PE pipes inside a PE fitting or coupler and then melting them together by passing a high current through a high resistance wire element contained within the fitting, see Fig 1 [8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Low temperature tensile lap-shear testing of adhesively bonded polyethylene pipe

LeBono

Barton²,

Birkett

2017

International Journal of Adhesion and Adhesives

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This work studies the lap-shear strength performance of polyethylene pipeline bonded with acrylic adhesive in the temperature range -10 to +20°C. Single lap shear test samples were firstly prepared at 20°C under various clamping pressures and curing times to determine suitable conditions under which to prepare and test further samples at temperatures of -10, -5, 0, +5 and +20°C. It was found that a decrease in curing/testing temperature to zero degrees resulted in a steady reduction in the lap-shear strength performance of the bonded joints from a mean value of 2.72 MPa at +20°C to 1.15 MPa at 0°C. Below zero degrees the strength of the bonded substrates was significantly reduced; no samples bonded at -5°C had sufficient strength to test and only one sample bonded -10°C was tested, which had very low strength of 0.105 MPa.

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Analysis of the electrofusion joining process in polyethylene gas piping systems

Cited by 21 publications

References 1 publication

Design and Development of a Battery Powered Electrofusion Welding System for Optical Fiber Microducts

Design and Development of a Battery Powered Electrofusion Welding System for Optical Fiber Microducts

Optimization of conjugate heat transfer in the electrofusion joint using Taguchi method

Low temperature tensile lap-shear testing of adhesively bonded polyethylene pipe

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