You’ve made the right choice and selected HDPE pipe. Now what? An optimum and comprehensive pipe system design is critical to project success and longevity of the infrastructure.

Hear our experts dive deep into HDPE pipe design considerations that maximize cost-savings, fine tune your project, enhance project efficiency and avoid challenges after project completion.

We’ll cover:

• Fine tuning wall thickness selection
• Preventing linear expansion and contraction
• Accommodating surge pressure
• Transitioning to legacy or other pipe materials

Will Vodak 

Okay, welcome back to another edition of ISCO insights. My name is Will Vodak. I will be your host for today. Thank you so much for joining us here live in studio from Louisville, Kentucky. I apologize, I’m not having my best hair day today, but we’re gonna make it through regardless. So thanks so much for being here. For those of you who have not joined in sites before, all your audio and video is turned off to enhance our quality here. So you can be sitting at home on your couch. No worries, we won’t be able to see you for any feedback or troubleshooting, please go ahead and use that chat box, we will do absolutely our best to help out. If you haven’t learned how to use Zoom by now. Bless you, because it’s been about three years for the rest of us. And for q&a. Please, if you have questions throughout this process, please use that q&a tab down below. We really are trying to capture as many questions as we can. And we’ve got two HDPE experts here in studio, Timmy Tipton, and Jeremy Becker answering questions in real time. But the man of the hour always seems to be the man to my left here, Mr. Garry Bouvet for those that don’t know and love him. Garry wants to give yourself a quick introduction. It’s well, good to be back side by side with you, man. We were just reminiscing I think the first time we did this, there were 30 people on Zoom.

Garry 

And now we’re in the several hundreds and we were on way we were in our dining rooms. Yeah. Learning all this technology it’s we’d never use

Will Vodak 

it’s pretty great doing a lot of that, you know, similar content kind of beefed up a notch today. So Garry, what are we talking about? Today,

Garry 

we are talking about design considerations will so all you engineers out there and in particular, this is a one really geared for you and hopefully helping as you’re designing and looking at your project moving forward. On the best ways to incorporate HDPE into your system.

Will Vodak 

We had such an overwhelming response from our last insights that we thought okay, so most people out there ready to take the plunge into using HDPE? What are some of the questions that they’re going to want to know heading into the job knowing that HDPE is going to be the material of choice for them. So we’re gonna go ahead and get started talking about HDPE design considerations. So first and foremost, Garry. design standards, right, we’re going to talk about some material selection type products here. First and foremost, when when specifying this stuff, you want to make sure you have a couple of key standards in there that are really going to help drive getting the right materials on a timely delivery, ensuring a quality safe successful project. Tell us more about that? Absolutely. Well.

Garry 

So you know, with the with the material in particular, we just start there at the top, your ASTM standards, right, everything’s driven a guide around those ASTM standards. So there are standards when it comes to polyethylene for the material, the raw materials that make up the pipe, right, and that’s 3350, which is the resin ASTM standard, then we move into the pipe dimensional standards, right, the OD controlled 3035 or the F 714 standard, which is greater for three inch and above. And then we get into now we’ve got the pipe covered. Now we have fittings, right, you can’t just don’t have pipe, you got fittings that go with it, that has a 30 to 61 for molded fittings, which would essentially be eight inch and down for the most part. And then 2206 For those fabricated fittings, those mitered elbows, those tees, reducing tees, all those fittings would fall under that 2206 standard and even got flange adapters flanges, those that’s 2880 that’s just, there’s even more than than these these are kind of the manners.

Will Vodak 

Yeah, a lot more. But they all play a role. You know, for instance, if it’s a you know, a gas collection project, that’s going to be a different specification, different set of requirements than an F 714. Pipe project,

Garry 

right, because you’ve got D O T, requirements that you’ve got to meet and adhere to, believe

Will Vodak 

it or not, these will have a slight impact on commercial availability, and sometimes pricing. So we want to make sure that in the bidding phases of your projects, please get with us if you need to look at an updated HDP specification, we can help point you in the direction in the right direction. I believe we just have an updated specification that is it is pretty good for most situations. So absolutely job for us on that. Believe it or not Garry all these things actually mean some things and 3608 the four 710s You know back when you started the 0001 Tell us what these what these symbols and numbers mean here. Well,

Garry 

they are part of the cell classification will and it’s a designation a shortened condensed version, when we say 4710 That is the latest and greatest cell classification for high density polyethylene pipe in various applications for water, sewer, anything with that, that black high density pipe. So we start with that first number the For that does have a meaning. And it refers to the density itself. As you mentioned, there was a 3608. Before that there was a 3604. And I’m sure even before that there were even lower number. But, you know, we’re now at a four and that simply is the density of the material that the resin that makes up the pipe, then we move to the seven, that number refers to the slow crack growth resistance. And that’s part of verified and validated by what they call a pen test, where they put a notch in the in the pipe, and they submerse that pipe and tested elevated temperature and pressure until that notch that was put in the pipe becomes a failure mode to crack. And to get a seven designation now well, we need 500 hours of solidifying that, until that crack shirt, they have us to meet that for at least a minimum of 500 hours were when it was a six or 3608 only had to meet for 100 hours, right? So big difference.

Will Vodak 

So now basically all HDPE coming out is HDPE 4710. So please update those specs if it has a 36 Oh wait, and their commercial availability is most like is most likely to be 4710 Nowadays, that we’re kind of at the we’ve got an iPhone here, you know, this is the iPhone 15 of HDPE resin. So this is a key step in the specification world for that project to go Correct. You know, we’ve got a little shy audience and normally we’ve had about 50 Questions so far with this amount of people. So we’re gonna go ahead and ask our first poll question of the day, which is when did you last spec HDP on a project we’re trying to gain some some insights pun intended there? I don’t know if you saw it. I just did into our audience. On the last time you SPEC’D HDPE Garry, what do you think we always play a little guessing game here?

Garry 

I’m not sure we’ll Yeah, it’s it’s overwhelming right

Will Vodak 

now. Is it overwhelming the last couple of months, our audience has specified something. But actually 12% of the over 300 people that have responded to this so far have never SPEC’D HDPE. So you know, we hope by the end of this year HCP will be in your next spec or you’ll have a new set of questions to ask. So let’s keep moving on here. Color striping with HCP Garry, we get a lot of requests for this sometimes it’s possible sometimes it’s not you want to talk about kind of what some of these colors mean and how often the commercial impact is to that project absolutely

Garry 

will so yeah, it’s a it’s a rainbow of colors that are available for piping but they do have have purpose in a lot of applications. Yellow pipe illustrate pipe is typically referred to in the gas industry, natural gas then we get into blue which is drinking water potable water, red is fire main. The green is the wastewater sewer applications. We even have a purple which is reclaimed irrigation. Orange is typically associated with conduit. Now if we get into if there’s any mining applications engineers on this presentation today, those stripes that I just referred to mean absolutely nothing to what’s flowing through it. It is relatively a size identification because you can imagine in those big minds those trucks that they’re in and they got to try to in that equipment trying to figure out what pipe there they need to move or or get a piece of soy the striping to them is strictly a size identifier.

Will Vodak 

So Garry if I have just a project and there’s 300 feet or so and I’m looking for purple stripe is that likely to be able to achieve be able to be achieved

Garry 

Well the good news Will is that in certain markets where that is very common in the in the reclaimed that is Florida and California we would probably have some inventory depending on what it is they were looking for sure. But yeah, it’s not as common as an every day go to piping material that we would normally sell so we just depend right most

Will Vodak 

of our product is stocked and straight black. Christopher Albert thanks Chris for answering asking your question here is there an additional cost to striping that pipe

Garry 

there’s no additional cost it doesn’t matter what you need we can we can get those colors on Iran and and get that put in there we might even be come up with if Chris has got a new color that he’d like to have as an identifier. We can do that as well.

Will Vodak 

Great questions, everyone. Keep them coming. We’re trying to do our best to overwhelm my friends here in the corner, Jeremy and Timmy who are scrambling trying to answer all your questions. So stay with us. We’ll keep answering some live as well. Dr. Selection Garry is a common topic here at ISCO where sometimes if you have a large enough pipeline that difference in materials savings can be significant by just switching from a Dr. 11 to Dr. 13. Five. So we’ve got the list here of dimension ratios in front of everybody. Let’s stick with Dr. 11. Because it’s a pretty common example. That is an operating pressure of 200 psi. So if I have surges, and we’ll cover surges a little later on, but you know, talk to us about the DR system and how it’s used in HDP, when it comes to system selection, right.

Garry 

So the the DR of the material is, as you said, is a working pressure. So with polyethylene pipe, being flexible, and can handle, you know, can expand and contract and absorb stresses that are put on it by surge events that occur whether you open and closing a valve HDPE is all defined based on working pressure. So when we say that is a 200, that is a working pressure, and it has the ability to handle surges of one and a half times for recurring. And two times for occasional. So two times that working pressure, right. So you reference the Dr. Levin 200. We have a occasional surge event opening closing a hydrant, something to that, you know, massive impact on surge velocity, polyethylene pipe can absorb that up to 400 psi, right, temporarily, right?

Will Vodak 

Yeah. And in a lot of cases, the DR is going to play a role in flow as well. We’ve got an OD controlled piping system here. As you increase the thickness of the pipe, there’s a slight reduction in ID you want to talk about, Garry, maybe a common question I get a lot is okay, I’ve got a 12 inch PVC system can’t get PVC right now, which is common, and we’re trying to you know, get them with some HDPE. Can you use a 12 inch HDPE? In a lot of cases, yes.

Garry 

And relatively not all DRS are the same, right? PVC is a pressure class. It’s not a working pressure. And so that’s one of the differences. They when you have surge on PVC pipe, that pipe has to get D rated. You know you if you get a pressure class, let’s take their DRA team, that’s a 235 PSI pressure class of pipe, nobody runs to learn 35 psi through that DRA team PVC platter, they d rated when they have surge accounted for. And so now that makes it equivalent. We don’t have a DRA team polyethylene, but working pressure wise we have a Dr. 17. Those are fairly equivalent in terms of both pressure capacity, and even ID

Will Vodak 

Yeah, we’re there’s gonna be some great resources towards the end. We’ve got a couple more questions here. Johnny Vasquez. Garry is asking about this chart right here, which is do you have a chart where we can find the pressure allowed according to the surface temperature? I know you you take a look at this chart frequently. Yep. Do you want to maybe go into this a little bit in detail,

Garry 

right. So polyethylene being it’s a thermal plastic, right, as temperatures elevate the the strength of HDPE gets reduced. And once we achieve a certain threshold, then the poly you know, we have to direct that pipe for higher temperature applications. HDPE, standard HDPE 4710, is rated for up to 140 degrees Fahrenheit, operating pressures, but even at 140, you have a multiplier of a point six per the PPI standard, which means that take that 200 psi pipe rate will we are now rated if we’re running it at 140 degree internal temperature that’s now directed to 120 psi working pressure.

Will Vodak 

So we’ve got the chart there. Could you pull that there we go so that this chart is backed up, you can see some of those temperature correcting factors there and we can actually get a copy of this out

Garry 

that absolutely they can get this in and PPI documentation as well will. Now there is a you know somebody may have a question that what happens if my operating temperatures above 140 right and we’re seeing that more and more a lot more right? Like district energy applications, even some of the oil and gas applications. We have a pipe there’s a pipe available that’s called pert polyethylene raise temperature you can actually have pressure capacity up to 180 degrees Fahrenheit operating.

Will Vodak 

And we’ve done some programs on pert in the past as well keep reaching out to us for those rapid fire questions. Garry here can piping be colored in the field is there a little paint gun that you can just kind of scratch on there?

Garry 

I mean, I have seen spray paint cans being done on pipe that’s been exposed. Unfortunately well it does not last very long on the pipe. Because of the nature of the material itself does not the paint does not adhere over over time and will wear off over weathering and so forth.

Will Vodak 

Right. A lot of gas related questions we typically see yellow stripe for gas related products and applications. wins. But that doesn’t mean that you know yellow stripe can’t be used for something else and a minor for instance, right i mean it’s it’s really up to the individual owner and the regulations and codes that go along with it. But the

Garry 

striping is important if you think about if everybody put polyethylene pipe in the ground for the all their sewer, water gas, if everything was black, kind of trick, you know, trying to guess which one you you’re supposed to tap into or, or try to fix or add on to, could be a little could be a little dicey. So and

Will Vodak 

one of our good friends here on the program, the anonymous attendee is asking, is there a good availability of all Drs. Garry, I’ll answer this one. Yes, it really depends. Typical stocking dimension ratios are 911 17, sometimes 32, five, mostly 11, and 17. But if your pipeline is long enough, and there’s availability and extrusion runs and plants, typically you can get, you know, pretty much any Dr that you’re looking for, as long as it’s within the seven 911 13 517 2126 or 32. Five, it’s only taken me eight years. But reach out to us and we’re happy to be put put together a budget quote, or lead time for your specific project and example and ISCO with one of the largest inventories in the nation can source a lot of these odd sized pipes. So let’s keep moving on here. Garry, we’ve got a lot to cover. Fabricated fittings F 2206 is a big one for us. Yeah

Garry 

of it, you know, there is a standard for fabricated fittings, you want to make sure that those fittings meet the pressure rating of the system that you’re putting them into. And anytime that we get into fabricated fittings, where we’re talking about miter joints sections, like we see on these pick images here will, you’ve got an elbow that’s got mitered sections fuse together to make that 45 or 90 degree elbow. Anytime we cut on a minor polyethylene that pressures do that that material is D rated. Okay, so if we have a Dr. Levin pipe system, and we need to maintain that 200 psi working pressure, we go to put in a mitered elbow, that is d rated about about 25% Sure, so we need to make that elbow out of the next higher der which would be a DR nine so that the elbow the fitting has the exact same pressure rating as the pipe system is joining to. We’ve tried to simplify that for everybody in the in the field with what we call EDR equivalent dimensional ratio. Yes, it’s

Will Vodak 

very important here because this term really helps everything out a lot make should make

Garry 

it really simple. If you’re putting in a Dr. Levin pipe system, then you’re gonna want EDR fabricated fittings EDR 11 fabricated fittings, that means it matches the Dr. The deal of the pipe, right?

Will Vodak 

Yep. Garry, can you fuse different ders together? So can I use a Dr. Nine to a Dr. 11?

Garry 

Yes, per the ASTM standard for fusion joining, you’re allowed one Dr. variation in the pipe, which actually, I think the standard equates to about a 27% thickness difference differential. But it’s usually say one Dr. And

Will Vodak 

we can kind of groove out some of those ends as well to make sure that their those ends match up if you’re using a beefed up and

Garry 

if they need to. And if you’re doing a FM project or a fire main project and use an FM material, it is automatically monitored for you per our standard. Yeah,

Will Vodak 

I’m sure I don’t have an ear bug in my ear. But I bet you if I did that producers have this fine program will be telling me please keep the questions coming. We’ve got just a couple of hard working guys over here trying to answer all of them. If we don’t get to your questions, do not worry. We will be in touch very shortly. And if you’re really lucky, you might even get a phone call from my man Garry, do we have to buy them lunch? So working with I think you do. So. So let’s move on Garry from fabricated fittings, we’re now talking about some performance related elements to polyethylene. This is this is kind of a big part of, of the reason we’re so passionate about HDPE is because of all the different design elements that we think ACP performs, we’re a little biased, but we think it performs better than most other materials out there. So but there are a couple of things that you do need to know about when using HDPE. Let’s start with maybe the thermal effects of HDPE. We are getting this question a lot. Okay. I’m just I’m I’m deciding to use HDPE. I’d like to put it in this type of system. I’m really concerned about the lineal expansion and contraction. Oftentimes this is a factor, maybe not as big of a factor is I think it’s kind of unknown. Yeah,

Garry 

it does, you know, because when you you look at the the base numbers, whatever standard you’re looking at, you see the the expansion coefficient for polyethylene, and it really is eye catching to somebody until they till you fully understand Dan, what’s going on? So with polyethylene pipe BNN, it’s a flexible pipe, right? We talked about the ability to handle surges and so forth. Right? It it expands and contracts. When we look at this the thermally HDPE, pipe it take this example will two inch Dr. Levin 200 foot long 40 degree temperature change, okay, over the over a given time period, when you run the calculations on that 110 100 That one inch per 10 degree temperature change for every 100 foot says that pipe is going to move eight inches. Well, if you’re sitting there behind the desk, calculate eight inches you’re like, that’s a lot of movement. How am I going to hold restraints, right eight inches of movement. When you put the numbers to it, that force that that movement generates is only about 321 pounds. That’s putting a couple of sandbags on the PI ground expressway. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it’s not a lack of probably hold that pipe and keep it from sharing, you know, the, you know, that 321 pounds of movement. So it’s really minim minimized substantially, we bury it, we put some soil on it, it’s not going to move, okay? Conversely, we compare that to carbon steel, right? We know robots strong, right? We run the same calculations for them, based on their expansion coefficient, says that pipes only gonna move three fifths of an inch. I mean, that’s not much. That’s not much. But look at the force that it’s takes to restrain that three fifths movement six or 8000 pounds significant, right, even you can’t hold that one back.

Will Vodak 

I think I could. But you know, Garry, I mean, a lot of the times though, we’re looking at this. And I mean, just ground weight and a lot of ways restraint. HDP pretty well.

Garry 

Are you talking about soil loading? Absolutely, yeah. Compaction around the pipe, right is going to restrain that movement, right? If it’s above ground, we’ve got some other elements that we need to put into consideration things like, you know, anchor clamps and different things. And we’ve had pipes that run on rack systems above ground, we need to account for that, because you don’t want that pipe sagging and dipping, you know, putting bends in where you get material settling down low, sure type of thing. So yeah, it’s definitely a consideration. But most of the time buried, you’re not going to have to worry now, the biggest difference that considering consideration when you have this is when you transition back to other materials. Exactly.

Will Vodak 

If we’re going to touch on that. Are we going to do that? ourselves? Okay, we’re going to touch on that here in a little bit. I was going to ask Garry about fusions, right, the whole point of using HCPs. We’re developing a fully fused monolithic system. The best part about the fusions is once you have a fuse together, you don’t have to worry about that joint with any lineal expansion, because it’s all one one

Garry 

is exactly what it is. It’s worth 10,000 feet, it’s 110 1000 foot piece of pipe, very obvious

Will Vodak 

and evident here using the bend radius for creative installations, right. So if we look at some of these fixtures, Garry, I’m looking at pipe that has at least a couple of joints in each one of those fixtures at the very least. But you can see here that in one, they are using a tree, Garry, that might be you in the corner there, I doubt you’d work that hard on a job site. But the the bend radius is allowing an easy installation into that looks like a drill or some sort of a trenchless method. Below that is actually a job where they eliminated fittings, tell us how easy it is to do that with HDPE.

Garry 

It really is because of that bend radius that you’re referencing, there will be approximately 25 times the outside diameter. I mean, you can let’s take a cul de sac, everybody knows cul de sac, you’ve got this curve around at the end right, the pipe bends around with polyethylene pipe, we can bend that, you know in a 12 foot radius around that cul de sac without putting an elbow or fitting in there to make those directional changes. Sure, if you took PVC pipe, for example, and or even ductile iron pipe, it would take over 250 foot to try to make that radius around. Right so you’re going to be putting elbows and and other fittings in ABS for more joints, more connections, more restraints, etc etc. On the other material.

Will Vodak 

Do you recommend you know 11 And a quarter degree elbows 22 and a half degree elbows most

Garry 

of the time depending on where we’re at. You can bend and flex that HDPE pipe around on those angles without putting an elbow and there are a few occasions in real tight urban settings where we may need to put a particular fitting like that and a 22 and a half but not as common.

Will Vodak 

Rafi is asking some good questions here. Garry, can you have joints in those bends? And what about having maybe a 45 degree elbow or a tee or some sort of fitting in those bends. How does that all work? Very

Garry 

close. So I’ll start with this first question. If we the fusion joint itself, is all one continuous piece of pipe, so that has no bearing on the joint, we can have the same bend radius with the pipe. Now, if we put an elbow in there, 45 or a 90 degree, then we’re going to go to 100 times as you see in that bottom part of the table will Yeah, so your dimension, your bend radius goes from about 25 to 100 times the outside diameter, it

Will Vodak 

changes just due to the stiffness retinol. Yeah, exactly. So you know the other the other clarification there, Garry is, you know, wait for that rough handling time. If you do something, don’t go ahead and bend it in a tight circle, right. And that way, you want to make sure you’re waiting a little bit for that rough handling time to to elapse. But But great question, Robbie, we appreciate that. So let’s just take a quick example here. I love trying to do this on live television because or it’s not televisions live zoom. But we have TV, because we always get the math wrong here. But let’s say I’ve got a 10 inch Dr. 11 pipe, and I’m trying to bend it in a circle. Based on this calculation, we’re taking 25 times 10 inches, that’s 250 inches to give us the radius of that circle. Is that how easy the math works? Well,

Garry 

I’d hate to correct your math, we’ll but if you give you a tip sharp easy to start with 20 inch pipe, because 20 inch pipe is nominal, right? 10 inches 10.75. So now I gotta do

Will Vodak 

this why I have area around this is this is this is perfect, you know, especially after that one. So again, please reach out to us. If you if you have any questions on bending HDPE field bending HDP. There’s some great guidelines. And stay tuned for all the resources at the very end, there are a ton of resources coming up that will help you basically, if you can’t get the answers from us in real time, we can show you where to go out and get it yourself. So search pressures. We spoke about this a little bit earlier, Garry with dimension ratio selections, but I love this graph, because it really does show you, for instance, you know, if we’re working on a project, and it’s only 120 psi operating, do I need a Dr. 11 for 200 psi? If I’m worried about you know, building some sort of safety factor in there. Do I need a 250? For Dr. Nine if I want to a two times safety factor? Please

Garry 

explain No, we we don’t design we don’t make pipe decisions design decisions based on testing pressures or occasional surges. So to answer your question yet, yeah, if you’ve got you don’t for 125 psi, you don’t need a Dr. 11. You may need a Dr. Levin will from based on an installation map area like wait, like directional drilling, where you’re getting a putting a lot of stress on that pipe, maybe a pipe bursting, maybe you look at that you may need a thicker pipe for those but not based on the operating parameters on the system that you described. Correct?

Will Vodak 

Okay, so we’re looking at burst strength down there, Garry, you know, very rarely do we see HDPE burst if you’re looking at you know, a Dr 11 system and that’s that systems hitting 800 psi he probably got bigger problems and just the something else is going for that type thing does feel what does that look like? Is it does it split down the whole length of the system or no

Garry 

it they call it a fish mouth where and basically what happens is you know the pipe expands to a point where it almost like a balloon, it just swells out and then it pops or ruptures in one particular area. And that’s it’s not it doesn’t propagate like you see in other pipe materials.

Will Vodak 

Garry, let’s move on here. This is one of your favorite slides I think probably because it’s really kind of an issue that is no longer that prevalent to us with HDPE which is chlorine resistance there’s I think there’s been a lot of information out there maybe from past resins and you know experiences that happened decades ago that is given HDPE kind of some black eyes back then but all this is now part of the 4710 cc three resin

Garry 

right and CC three is the highest designation that we have for for piping material right now. The standards that we referenced earlier that a WWE standards have have somewhat addressed this to for the particularly the service piping, you know the from the mains up to let’s say homes or businesses, the C 901 that all requires Dr. Nine now for HDPE as is the required standard dimensional ratio for that pipe as part of it, ongoing effort to to account for the chlorine but the CC three the dr. Nine designation has pretty much eliminated any issues that we had in previous time with with chlorine and polyethylene. Any more

Will Vodak 

information on this, please get with aw wa see, you know, no one for references, no six, PP it and 4040 and 49, great information out there. If you’re if you’re looking to take a deep dive on this subject. So we’re through with pipe performance, Garry, next up, we’re talking about the fun stuff, the installation, this is what we love to do, you and I head out to job sites, check out HDPE being installed. It’s really where it all comes together from these conversations we’re having here through the specification, getting materials built, and now we’re installing it, there’s a couple of situations that we need to maybe take a look at. So these are some of the common things that we see, which is direct burial, a lot of questions about bedding, Max cover. A lot of man, this plastic pipe is going to break, you know, we got to get it treated very, very carefully. Is that been your experience? Yeah, all the

Garry 

time. There’s a lot of uncertainty with people, especially if they’re new to using it will the ones that have experienced with it, they know what to do with it? And they’re not, there’s not as much concern, but if you’re new, we get it. You know, the desert do it? Does it require bedding, does it not? And how much and how much cover? You know, we’ve got all that covered in a lot of the different standards we’ve referenced in 55. there but, you know, essentially, some of this comes to based on the Dr that you have, well, if you’re using Dr. 13, five or thicker pipe, you know your bedding, you don’t really need a sand bedding, right? You’re not having to haul truckloads of sand out to fill us issues. Native backfill, the biggest concern that we have with polyethylene and really for any thermal plastic is point load, right? You got boulders rocks underneath in the trench that that pipe is going to be laying on the pipe needs to be bedded from that to prevent any damage over time, to the to the piping material. But that that’s where, you know, we’re not too concerned. Now if you get into the thinner walls, you mentioned, the are 26, Dr. 32, five, those are much thinner, your bedding, your backfill and even your compaction around all the way up through the hot zone is critical for that pipe not to deflect and buckle to a point where it doesn’t provide the service that it was intended to do.

Will Vodak 

Sure. Let’s also talk about Soileau scary this aw wa m 55 design Windows great. It can kind of point you in the right direction for you know, min and max covers with H 20. Right and in in the Dr. Range Selection, you want to walk us through that real quick. Yeah, so

Garry 

as you see in there, Dr. Seven to 21 those are the most common sizes. If you’ve got an H 20. Highway loading, we’re yet trucks and equipment driving over it, your minimum is three foot of cover from the from the top of that crown of that pipe all the way to the you know, to the surface of the road or, or what have you. Without a H 20. Live loading, like, say, you know, just a gravel area or you know, you’re only gonna get a deer walking over it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Two foot a cover is sufficient because we’re not we’re not having that weight compressing, compressing down on that pipe. And your maximum depth is 25 foot. You know, we’ve even been we know we’ve done directional drills that are even

Will Vodak 

greater than that. Right are definitely yeah. And that’s when we might look into a thicker dimension ratio.

Garry 

Exactly. Yep.

Will Vodak 

Let’s move on to maybe, you know, installation effects, they’re going to happen as you’re pressurizing that system. Porcelain effect right here. For instance, when we’re when we’re putting in a pressure the system, what are some things that are going to happen to a thermoplastic? Yep, a little more flexible, a little more forgiving? And what do we need to kind of take account.

Garry 

So we talked about that flexibility and ability to to handle and account for surges. So the pipe will expand. But as that pipe expands, you can imagine if expand outward will, it’s going to want to shrink longitudinally. And so it’s going to want to resist or it’s going to want to pull. Now, if your pipe system is 100% polyethylene, we don’t have an issue here, because it’s all fused. It’s all will stress relieve itself, right? Where we have the concern is when we transition are we connect to that to an existing material ductile iron any any non polyethylene material, now we’ve got a transition point that could because that energy is going to go somewhere, and it’s going to find the weakest, the weakest link in that chain. And that weakest link is typically your transition points. Sure. And so we’ve got to account for that in some method that is either using a threat S block, as you can see in figure 33, there on the left, where we put a thrust block, right prior to the transition point, right, you see that MJ adaptor connection to the mechanical joint pipe, we put that thrust block on there, we transition all of that force that energy away from the pipe transferred into the ground. So there’s no stresses being put on, not the joint itself, that mechanical connection is fully restrained. Well, the problem is downstream is this balanced balance? Exactly, those are the weak links in the system. And we have to either get that energy off the pipe, if we can’t put a thrust block, because of soil conditions or things that are in the way other piping systems, right, that might be present there, then we need to expose two to three joints downstream on the under strain pipe, and restrain those right?

Will Vodak 

A lot of things to discuss here, Garry, but this all kind of goes into that lineal expansion and contraction, right, especially when you’re pressurizing this stuff. Let’s talk about some thrust blocks. Because I know one of the main benefits of HDPE is that it is a fully restrained system, you’re putting a 90 in, you don’t have to have a thrust block on the other side of that. And this really is a very helpful way to have a CPE. And your see your systems be installed. There’s a couple of different methods to be able to put HDPE encased in concrete doesn’t like to stick to anything but HDPE. So we really have to put a lip there a wall, in this case, a wall anchor or a flexor strain. What do you prefer in those two?

Garry 

Well, you know, it just depends on the situation, I have done wall anchors for new construction, if somebody is going to be pouring a foundation wall, let’s say around the pipe, you’ve got your care, pick a line sewer line coming into, let’s say a building, you put the foundation you pour, I’d use a wall anchor in that place, because I’ve already got a preset, if I’m going through an existing wall, I’m probably using flexor strength, right, because that can put them on both sides and either side of the wall and backed up against the wall, either direction that it wants to move. And I’ve restrained that restrain that pipe, each one of those flex restraints will will hold resist about 7000 pounds of force. So once we calculate up the amount of force that’s going to be applied, per that movement, expansion contraction, what have you we have to account for, but it may require two or three, three of these for these on in a particular area. Sure, yep.

Will Vodak 

These are great products and the availability, these are the things Garry that we typically see at the end of the project. Yeah, where, you know, contractors installed all this. And it’s just kind of cleaning up those loose ends. I love the fact that we’re talking about this, because it’s always applicable on these projects. This is one of my projects, your Giri this beautiful looking supported, it’s almost like it could go in the Louvre, it’s a work of art, your projects now might not look so pretty. You’ve got some support spacing here, equations that are really going to prevent any sagging from from both an aesthetic and a functional practice.

Garry 

Right. Now we know polyethylene right above ground is going to want to move right, we’ve talked about the thermal effects, it will snake around. And if you want to keep it in a neat, clean orderly fashion, like we see here, then you’ve got to have that underneath support every so often. Because otherwise that pipe will move around like a garden hose, when exposed to the ultraviolet variations and in the day and night that that that pipe will be exposed to. So there are calculations we can help engineers with or we can point them in the right direction that will tell you how, how wide your spacing needs to be based upon your thermal conditions that the pipe is going to be exposed to.

Will Vodak 

Okay, let’s take some time we’re getting some really good questions here. And maybe let’s just take a break a little bit from the presentation and try to focus on some of these. First off when HDPE pipe is subjected to a significant overpressure How soon should it be replaced? So if we’re looking at maybe a surge pressure and event of two times three times? What are your thoughts on that?

Garry 

That’s that that’s a that’s a good question. If it stays within the the two times on it, occasional I’m not concerned about replacing that pipe. There’s really no good formula or calculation that we can we can go and say that if your pipe got exposed to a 600 psi surge event that you know it’s going to last x we don’t we don’t have any finite way of doing that, unfortunately. My My guess is that if we anything exceeds the two times the working pressure, something else on that pipeline is failing before, before the pipe does. Sure. So I highly doubt that that event would actually occur. And if it did, it would be in a very small space, because it takes a while for that energy to transfer down to the existing pipeline system. Absolutely.

Will Vodak 

Phil Roberts asking you another good one. If you’re if you’re joining restrained ductile iron to your HDPE, would you rather have the thrust block on the HDPE or restrain the ductile iron?

Garry 

My preference is a truss block is much easier. Those flex restraints are much easier than exposing three, four joints downstream and having to I mean, you’re dealing multiple fittings with the ductile iron, downstream mega lugs and all these other things that you’ve got to go on to restrain. So a flexor strength. If you’ve got the space, you’ve got the ability to do it is much, much easier.

Will Vodak 

rapidfire. Garry, we’ll see if you can keep up. It’s also asking he’s in Arizona with our good friend, Mike James. What do you do about UV protection for exposed HDP?

Garry 

It’s great question. Yeah, polyethylene. Well, being black in nature has the UV stabilizers already built into the pipe? So we are not concerned about above ground? In fact, Bill out in Arizona. We have 1000s of miles of HDPE. Pipe and flex off again. Yeah, exactly. So that have been exposed for decades without any detriment to the HDPE itself.

Will Vodak 

The only time that breaks is when Mike James installed, right? Well, yeah. Yeah. So let’s keep going here, Garry. Appreciate all the questions, everyone, please keep them coming. Let’s talk about pressure testing with HCP. This is a great question, we get a lot of maybe some guidelines for pressure testing. Now. ISCO does not handle pressure testing as part of our scope. But there are some great industry recommendations. We prefer to send people towards the hydro route, or we think it’s a safer option. And that’s paramount. And that’s basically what the industry guidance says, correct? That is correct.

Garry 

There’s even an ASTM standard wheel 2164 that can walk and guide anybody right to the pressure testing parameters, as well as different pipe manufacturers of polyethylene that all have testing procedures lined out for hydrostatic testing. So that’s what we’d prefer. Like you said, it’s much safer. But I know sometimes it’s really hard to get water, make enough makeup water in some areas to to do that. So if there is those situations, get with us. And we’ll, we’ll help walk somebody through the best way to accommodate the testing,

Will Vodak 

we could probably spend a whole episode talking about pressure testing, there’s a lot, the most common thing that I get is, hey, we just plug this in. I’m really concerned because it’s dropped 10 psi in 30 minutes. What what does that tell you, Garry?

Garry 

Oh, that I’m not concerned about that 10 psi drop? Well, because you know, we’ve touched on it expansion of polyethylene pipe. So that’s when you apply that water and that pressure, you’re essentially putting a surge event on that pipe, it’s flexible, it’s going to expand, when something gets bigger, the pressure drops. But it’s a temporary scenario. Once we allow for that to the pipe to stabilize, we apply enough makeup water in there to account for that initial expansion that hit it. And then once we get to that we achieve equilibrium on the pressure, then we let it sit there for the prescribed time. And we’re going to be good to go. And then you go right, absolutely.

Will Vodak 

We also get a lot of questions, Garry about connecting and other materials. Now this might not be about, you know, restrain connections into other materials, or how to prevent lineal expansion. More practically, though, just how to get the dang things connected together. And there are several different methods that we’ve used over the years. Why don’t you walk us through some of some of these and maybe where you would use one over another? Well,

Garry 

let’s start with the top one there will that’s a flange connection. And you can see that picture. We’ve got a flange spool piece in there, based upon the repair requirements that they had. I believe that was actually a 36 inch line where that was put in.

Will Vodak 

And that was a good old Friday afternoon.

Garry 

I think that was your job. It was Yeah. Did you do that fusion? No,

Will Vodak 

nobody said trust me with 36 inch fusion.

Garry 

So we can do flanges that is the most common method for transitioning to other materials, but we also have mechanical connection sometimes fusion is not an option that is our most preferred method, it’s our first go to when we’re making repairs or connections. But some instances just don’t allow for it, you can’t shut the water off. And which means you can’t do a fusion of any kind or so now we look at mechanical connections. Victaulic is one example. There’s a number of others of those mechanical connections. Here we’ve got an MJ mechanical joint. So for transitioning to a bell and spigot, or a valve that has that MJ connection on it, this is what we do fuse the plane into the pipe. And then we’ve got that mechanical joint connection going into it. And then we’ve even got transition fittings, whether it’d be steel, carbon steel, stainless steel, ductile iron, we’ve got threaded connections for just about we’ve got male threads, female threads and any types, many types of transition fittings. To go from polyethylene pipe to the other we know not every system is going to be fully polyethylene. So there needs to be transitions, we can help anybody choose what’s going to be the right right option for their

Will Vodak 

application. Now are all of these connections, restrained fittings, anything, anything

Garry 

that’s fuse, that mechanical joint that MJ adapter we talked about earlier, that is a fully restrained connection, those Victaulic couplings are fully restrained. Now, there are some mechanical connections that are not restrained, and we’d have to go and incorporate mega, mega, right, some type of additional restraint device for that application.

Will Vodak 

The bottom line, Garry is you almost have too many options when it comes with HTTP. What color do you want? What Dr. Do you want? How do you want to connect this into there? What would you like this fitting look like? I think that’s really the the benefit of using HDPE is you have this opportunity to use basically, an unlimited amount of resource to get exactly the design that you’re looking for. So right, you know, in the in the 100 years since Garry’s been working here, they’ve really figured out all the questions haven’t seen just

Garry 

about but you know, but that’s also the great thing about ISCO and us and what we can, we can help kind of navigate and sort through what what are the best choices for every jet? No, two jobs are the same. After

Will Vodak 

seeing so much over 50 years in business. You know, that’s what that’s what happens. Okay, let’s launch another poll question. Here we are on our third section coming up, which is our resources, like to ask the audience now that you’re more familiar with the benefits of HDPE? How likely are you to use it on your next project, we’ve got basically 82% of the audience is is answering very likely, some of the audience at is answering, I don’t have any projects. One person from the PVC lobby as a as saying not likely to use HTTP, I need to talk to him. Although we listen, regardless of where you stand. We really appreciate you spending time with us to learn about HDPE. And you know, this is all for educational benefits, which is really important to us here at ASCO. So Garry, if people want to take a deeper dive into the resources, what are some of the resources available to everyone’s you know, in the toolbox of ammunition for their disposal,

Garry 

a lot of light reading here Well, that’s available to everybody the PE handbook. Is is the is the go to for me. I mean, I look at this all the time. They now I’m doing it on online, they have online version, that I don’t have to look at the book anymore. But lots of lots of great information, everything that we’ve touched on from the ad, you know, from the ASTM standards, you know, to burial to testing and guidance. All of those are in here in the PE handbook. In a WW wa m 55 is another great resource, particularly for those that are doing those municipal applications. Another organization we’re a part of and happy to support the PE Alliance does a traveling roadshow throughout the country every year, great resources on their website, case studies, references referrals that people can go see what other people are doing with the HDPE. And then of course, our very own ISCO website will still have great information and tools to help assist and even with links to some of these others if they need

Will Vodak 

it. I always start with the PPI handbook Garry and then you see you kind of work your way back from there. It was just such a great resource. I’ll give you a break so you can drink some water. This HDPE pipe calculator is fantastic. The HDPE AP presented by PPI really gives you a lot of easy to use and easy to understand calculations on a lot of the subjects we’re talking about supports Facing lineal expansion, burial loads, pressure search, all that it’s all here in the HDPE pipe app, go ahead and view that we’d be more than happy to sit down with you to kind of review these, you can go as deep or kind of as shallow. Again, I’m pretty good on those funds today as you’d like with this app. Next up, we’ve got the PPI pace app, this is another good one that compares several different materials. In terms of surge allowance life cycle, you know how long it’s going to last number of, you know, cyclic fatigue and all that stuff. It’s all here in this pace. And it can show you the benefits of using different sized and different thick thickness of HDPE, PVC or ductile iron, you probably use this quite a bit

Garry 

use that use that one all the time. Well, and it is a great tool, because it allows the designer, the operator whoever’s needing the information to do a really good comparison, putting in their parameters of their operating system, from, as you said, from the pressures to, to surge events, and so forth, and everybody’s going to be different. And so there, this is a great way to really compare and see which one is going to provide you the most long term benefit. Sure.

Will Vodak 

So Garry, we’ve kind of reached the end of this presentation, I do want to say I’m going to actually go ahead one slide here. If you need CPE. Us, please go ahead and scan this QR code. I know this is a common question that we get, we are happy to provide PDH see us any sort of engineering credits needed, please go to that website is go dash pipe.com backslash CEU. And go ahead and fill this form out. We are getting a lot of people through this system, and are going to need a couple of weeks to process these. So please give us just a little bit time and we will be in touch with you. And if you don’t see it in a couple of weeks, you can go ahead and reach out to us and we’d be we’d be more than happy to help. But Garry before going to who is this guy? I’d like to answer maybe some questions live. Are there differences in lead times between dips? And if sizes?

Garry 

Yes, the short answer is yes. Yep. Dips is not as common in our HDPE world I know in the municipal world that is kind of a standard for their piping, because if they’ve been using ductile or PVC, they’re getting a ductile od material. We have a couple of areas regionally in the country, that inventory and stock dips pipe, but across the entire country. I don’t know where the question is coming from if they were from Florida, I’d tell them yes, it’s readily available. If if they’re from another I don’t

Will Vodak 

know if we know that bottom line is you know, there there are some differences in availability with IPS VIPs. Okay, are larger diameter HDPE pipes, 42 inch, 48 inch, 54 inch available at higher Dr. Ratings, like Dr. Nine Dr. 11 there

Garry 

are limits to what the HDPE pipe can be produced at. But that is constantly changing and evolving will so excuse me, if there’s a particular need, you know, we may have the ability to use some different techniques for producing that pipe. So get with us. And we can sit down and figure out if it’s something that we can accommodate, but pipe is getting thicker and thick, thicker every day. We’ve recently done an 88 inch project. That’s the largest like it was last largest pipe in North America ever installed. And I heard a rumor Garry, I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this or confirm this or not.

Will Vodak 

I do believe we’re going to be doing a large diameter typing episode here coming up shortly. So stick around for that one, I think in the next couple of months. So a lot of questions. Actually. The most asked question on this this q&a session is, is there a? Is there a pipe with a tracer wire being coextruded with it? Wow, I’ve never heard of this question. Oh, Caleb is seconding. The question, Christopher Albert is adamant that we answer this question. I think it’s a good one because I’ve never heard of this.

Garry 

This I have I have heard and discussed this, I would say for at least 12 years that I occasionally have run run into this request. And I know many, many people have tried it. Many manufacturers of of pipe have tried it. There’s some difficulty in that when you start taking into the fusion aspec’d, right, right on that arrow wall. How do you how do you do that tracer wire to make that fusion? That’s kind of one of the big The big parameters, but I know it’s been something

Will Vodak 

that comes to my mind carry is like a heat trace type situation with a thin layer preinstallation some slots for that. Yeah, that trays are to be placed in there. There might be some options there. But I think right now, they’re commercially is not an option to have tracer wire coextruded with the polygon. So let’s keep going here. We had a couple of questions about fusing, maybe a 3608 to 4710, fusing MDP MDPE to HDPE, maybe some dissimilar types of products being fused together per two HDPE. What are your thoughts on that? So

Garry 

it depends on the material. So you mentioned pert to HDP. Both of them are 4710. The Fusion procedures for PERT and for standard 4710 pipe are exactly the same. So essentially, you could fuse pert, straight to HDPE. But I would question anybody who’s doing that is to do you have pert on one side to just suddenly temperature drop the further requirement of the PERT to immediately go to the 4710? Sure. So I might have some some questions there. What were the other examples that was referenced?

Will Vodak 

What is Suzanne is asking what is the best method to connect eight inch 1982? Oh, before I was born, so 30 The

Garry 

problems are 3406 406408. She’s

Will Vodak 

saying okay, and 4710? By again, good

Garry 

news there. Fusion procedures are identical. So there’s no no difference. No difference there. You’re working pressures are going to be different on the on the two different lines. So, but no, no issue with the joining so

Will Vodak 

many good questions. There’s no way we get to all of them. So thank you for that. Let’s bring this thing home. Garry, I’m gonna go ahead and talk about this great company that we work for ISCO industries, based here in Louisville, Kentucky, with yards support people, passionate people all over the United States, and Canada to help you with with projects, big or small, it is something that we’re here to do. So we are a national HCP solutions provider specializing in materials supply, fusion equipment, sale, rental technician services, training, certifications, anything to do with HDPE, including custom and standard fabrication, and stuff like this education, resources and training is stuff that we’re very passionate about. And we’d love it if you would connect with us. I’ve always wanted to be an influencer. So please follow us on these various social media channels. I wish I could do better. Can you put me on the screen so I can do the subscribe to yes to our YouTube link. But no, seriously, please go ahead. And look, we’ve got a great amount of content coming out. And I know you’d be interested in seeing it. And lastly, I want to I want to put this this site back up here. ISCO dash pipe.com/ceu Is the request form or go ahead and scan this QR code. And we will get these to you as soon as we possibly can. One last poll question before we bring this thing home, Garry, which of the following topics would you like more information? This will help us dial in and cater to future ISCO insights episodes, as we are constantly looking for new material to bring into this into this rotation here, if you will, what would you like to do, Garry?

Garry 

Oh, me, you got me. You got me excited for the large diameter pipeline. I’m um, I think I’m ready chomping at the bit. I’m pretty pumped for that. Well, that was fun, because those are pretty unique. We’ll

Will Vodak 

see if we can get Donnie Kaiser up here to be on camera. So we’ll stick with that. Anyways, I’d like to, we’ve answered some questions. Garry, is there anything else you’d like to say? No,

Garry 

we appreciate everybody participating in joining us here. And I hope it’s been beneficial for them. I always enjoy talking talk and HDPE story, helping people you know, choose a better alternative for their piping system.

Will Vodak 

And a huge thanks to Jeremy Becker and Timmy Tipton today for answering those questions in real time. It’s gonna cost me a lot. It is. Well, on behalf of everybody here at ISCO industry. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to join us talking about HDPE pipe. We hope you learned some things and we’ll see you next time on an episode of ISCO insights in the mean in the meantime, stay safe out there and happy fusing as always