What pipe materials will dominate the market in the future 2

[corrosion10]

Ferrous pipes corrode easily and may produce tuberculars. Plastic pipes may leach chemicals and can not take much external pressure. Also PVC tend to break in the winter under freezing condition and I am not aware of any way to heat the PVC pipe from freezing.

Still, I think PVC/HDPE pipes will like to take more market share for water/wastewater use. I will predict the PVC/HDPE will take up to 70% of the water/wastewater piping use.

Any comments?

 

[DRWeig]

Just based on regulatory readings over the past year, I'd bet on HDPE not PVC. At least in a number of high-profile "Green" or "sustainable" projects, PVC is being prohibited due to the type of hazardous by-products from its manufacturing process.

Hope to hear more on this topic, it's kind of interesting.

Good on ya,

Goober Dave

 

[gerhardl]

As usual this will in some degree be dependent on size (dimension), pressure (class), local regulations (for instance for drinking water, hydro-electric power plants or other), price (cheapest allowed or more costly/longer expected lifetime), climatic conditions, availabillity (local products/price and transport cost - remember the forum has worldwide coverage, and practice and rules will vary in Asia, Erope and US and elsewhere)

Apart from this, guesstimate:

HDPE or similar products or newer(not yet developed ?) plastic based components/types for lower pressure classes, all dimensions.
GRP for some higher dimensions (?)

Market competition and product development will ensure that exact types and composition of products and use will vary, but 'iron' is probably no longer a correct answer for dominating use for common water, including up to temperated for heat distribution.

Inhouse: Plastic based pipe in pipe for smaller, built in dimensions.

Larger / more demanding and higher pressure classes than allowed for or economical/practical for plastic and GRP:
Iron and steel, inside and outside covered and protected (by plastic composites) and stainless steel

Waterworks: stainless steel.

 

[zdas04]

I work in Oil & Gas, but there is a lot of stuff we use that came from water/wastewater, and I expect that much of the stuff developed for Oil & Gas will move into water/wastewater.

One thing I'm pretty sure of is that the spoolable composite pipes will continue to get larger (bigger dimensions). At least two manufacturers have a nominal 6-inch product and I expect that in the next couple of years everyone will have 6-inch and some smart boy will lead the way into 8-inch. If you compare the cost of FlexSteel or Fiberspar to stainless, I'd say that inside waterworks any piping that can be 6-inch or smaller will tend towards spoolable composites instead of Stainless. The price difference is just too great.

I also expect the HDPE liner systems that were developed for water main rehabilitation and have moved into every sort of rehabilitation will be a big player in water works. I can lay a new thin-walled carbon steel pipe and pull an HDPE liner through it and get better performance than Stainless for about 1/4 the price. Those kinds of numbers get people's attention.

For distribution piping, I expect a lot of HDPE in bigger sizes. For 6-inch and smaller I expect municipalities and contractors to adopt spoolable composites (especially Fiberspar's PEX lined pipe) in a very big way.

I'm thinking that the days of buried PVC and GRP are nearly over. None of the regulators like the results they've been seeing with these products, and I see a fair bit of push towards HDPE.

David

 

[gerhardl]

Hello zdas04!

You stated:
- 'I can lay a new thin-walled carbon steel pipe and pull an HDPE liner through it and get better performance than Stainless for about 1/4 the price.'

Interesting! Could you please elaborate (dimensions, pressure classes etc) and/or give direction to further information?

 

[zdas04]

It is something I realized while working on a rehabilitation project in a gas field. The installed pipe was 0.144 wall 8-inch (I think it was Schedule 5, but I can't find that in very many references). Using a 3/64 corrosion allowance the MAWP was 320 psig. If I pull an HDPE liner through it I can adjust the corrosion allowance to zero since the steel won't be in contact with the process and the ASME B31.8 MAWP goes to 608 psig. This pipe is really cheep at $100/ft (about 1/2 the cost of 0.322 wall). Lay cost is probably another $120/ft. The liner was around $12/ft installed.

The last price I got for stainless steel was a couple of years ago and it was for Sched 80 316 SS, the steel (in 20 ft joints) was $221/ft and the TIG weld quote worked out to $800/ft. I expect both of these numbers in 8-inch to be 25% higher so installed cost of stainless would be around $1,300/ft.

David

 

[KiwiMace]

Interesting posts David. Was this aboveground? There have been several jobs I wanted PE pipe but couldn't bury it, which is probably the greatest drawback of this useful piping material.

I'm assuming you had good straight sections for this to work? How did you work the bends? Just transition to a normal steel or SS wall thickness?

I have never spent much time with the ASME codes, but i'd like to know how they determine the composite pressure rating. I'll put that on my reading list.

 

[zdas04]

Most everything I do is buried. If I was doing something like a waterworks I would probably work out a deal with the liner manufacturer (the one I used was United Pipeline Systems, but there are others) and have them supply fittings with flanges and the liner already installed. Straight runs would basically be pups that you line in the field and bolt to fittings. All this flanging and bolting sounds expensive, but for better performance (lower stresses, bigger ID, lower absolute roughness) at SIGNIFICANTLY lower costs it would certainly be worth it.

David