• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.63 no.8
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• pp.1098-1103
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• 2014

This study deals with the development of an electrofusion welding machine that is capable of joining plastic pipes using a recently developed electrofusion fitting. This fitting has built-in conductive plastics that are used to weld the joint together as a heating element. In order to explain the mechanism of the new machine, 1) the resistance characteristics of the heating element were explained, 2) the method of electric welding that uses the electrofusion fitting was described, and 3) the method of power supply based on controlling the firing angle was explained. A control system for an intelligent electrofusion welding machine was proposed. This system has the ability to recognize the diameter of an electrofusion fitting using a lookup-table based on the difference of resistance curves according to fitting types, and it is able to weld the fittings regardless of the ambient temperature. A new algorithm was developed to control the power of electric welding through the recognition of feature points from the resistance curve of the heating element. In order to evaluate the performance of the developed welding machine, tests involving the welding of 16 mm- and 20 mm-type fittings were carried out. Examining the welding results, we concluded that the proposed welding machine will offer high productivity and reliability in the field of electrofusion welding.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.87-92
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• 2014

The Notched Ring Test(NRT) has proven to be very useful in determining the slow crack growth behavior of polyethylene pressure pipes. In particular, the test is simple and an order of magnitude shorter in experimental times as compared to the currently used Notched Pipe Test(NPT), which makes this method attractive for use as the accelerated slow crack growth test. In addition, since the NRT specimen is taken directly from the pipe, having maintained the cross-section, processing induced artifacts that would affect the slow crack growth behavior are not altered. This makes the direct comparison to the slow crack growth specimen in pipe from more meaningful. In this study, for comparison with other available slow crack growth methods, including the NPT, the stress intensity factor equation for NRT specimen was developed and demonstrated of its accuracy within 3% of that obtained from the finite element analysis. The equation was derived using a flexure formula of curved beam bending along with numerically determined geometric factors. The accuracy of the equation was successfully tested on 63, 110, 140, 160, 250, and 400 mm nominal pipe diameters, with crack depth ranging from 15 % to 45 % of the pipe wall thickness, and for standard dimensional ratio(SDR) of 9, 11, and 13.6. Using this equation the slow crack results from 110SDR11 NRT specimen were compared to that from the NPT specimen, which demonstrated that the NRT specimen was equivalent to the NPT specimen in creating the slow crack, however in much shorter experimental times.