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.
Join our experts for our next ISCO Insights: Design Considerations for Maximum Pipe Performance, and take a deeper dive into design considerations that maximize cost-savings, fine tune your project, enhance project efficiency, and avoid challenges after project completion.
We'll cover:
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.
Join our experts for our next ISCO Insights: Design Considerations for Maximum Pipe Performance, and take a deeper dive into design considerations that maximize cost-savings, fine tune your project, enhance project efficiency, and avoid challenges after project completion.
We'll cover:
Welcome back to another edition of ESCO Insights. My name is Will Bodak. 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 going to make it through regardless. So thanks so much for being here. For those of you who have not joined insights 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 that 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 HP experts here in studio, Tommy 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. Gary Bouvet. For those that don't know and love him, Gary, I want you 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 and now we're in the several hundreds. And we were a long way. We were in our dining rooms. All right. Yeah, well, learning all this technology that we never used, it's pretty great. Doing a lot of similar content. Kind of beefed up a notch today. So, Gary, what are we talking about today? We are talking about design considerations. Will So all you engineers out there in particular. This is a one really geared for you and hopefully helping as you're designing and looking at your projects moving forward. On the best ways to incorporate HTP into your system. We had such an overwhelming response from our last insights that we thought, okay, so most people out there are ready to take the plunge into using HTP. What are some of the questions that they're going to want to know heading into the job, knowing that FTP is going to be the material of choice for them? So we're going to go ahead and get started talking about design considerations. So first and foremost, Gary, 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 this. Absolutely Will. 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 the raw materials that make up the pipe. Right? And that's 3350, which is the resin ASTM standard. Then we move into the high dimensional standard drive, the OD controlled 30, 35 or the F 714 standard, which is greater for three inch and above. And then we get in to now we've got the pipe covered. Now we have fittings, right? You can't just don't have pipe 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 as minor elbows, those TS reducing TS, all those fittings would fall under that 22 or six 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 there's a16. Yeah there's a lot more but they all play a role you know for instance if it's a gas collection project, that's going to be a different specification, different set of requirements than an F 714 pipe project, right? Because you've got D.O.T. requirements that you've got to meet and adhere to. Believe 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 HDPE specification, we can help pointing that in the right direction. I believe we just have an updated specification that is, it is pretty good for for most situations. So absolutely great job for us on that. Believe it or not, Gary, all these things actually mean some things at 36. So it's the four seven tens. You know back when you started the 0001. Tell us what these what these symbols and numbers mean. Well, they are part of the cell classification will. And it's a designation, the short and 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 four that does have a meaning and it refers to the density itself. As you mention, there was a 36, okay. 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 growth resistance, and that's part of the verified and validated by what they call a pen test, where they put a notch in the in the pipe and they submersed that pipe and tested elevated temperature and pressure until that notch that was put in the pipe becomes a failure mode, a crack. And to get a seven designation now well we need 500 hours of of solidifying that until that crack. Sure it must meet that for at least a minimum of 500 hours where a window is a six or 3608 only had to meet for 100 hours. Right. So big difference. So now basically all HDPE coming out is HD 4710. So please update those specs if it has a 36 hour wait and their commercial availability is most like is most likely to be 4710 nowadays. What kind about 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 today. Normally we've had about 50 questions so far with this amount of people. So we're going to go ahead and ask our first poll question of the day, which is when did you last spec HTP on a project? We're trying to gain some some insights, pun intended there. I don't know if you saw what I just did into our audience on the last time you spoke to HDPE. Gary, what do you think? We always play a little guessing game here. I'm not sure. Will Yeah, Yeah, it's overwhelming right now. Is it over? Well, in 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 specked. So, you know, we hope by the end of this, your HDP will be in your next back or you'll have a new set of questions to ask. So let's keep moving on here. Color striping with HTP Gary, 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. Well, 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, yellow stripe 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 mines, those trucks that they're in there, they got to try to fit in their equipment, trying to figure out what pipe there they need to move or or get a piece of. So the striping to them is strictly a size identifier. So, Gary, if I have just a project and there's 300 feet or so and I'm looking for a purple stripe, is that likely to be able to be able to be achieved? 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 everyday go to piping material that we would normally sell. So most of this depends, right? Most of our product is stocked and in straight black. Christopher Albert. Thanks Chris, for answering asking your question here, Is there an additional cost to striping that pipe? There's no additional cost. It doesn't matter what you need. We can we can get those colors on a run 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. Great questions everyone. Keep them coming. We're trying to do our best to overwhelm my friends here in the corner. Jeremy and Tim, who are scrambling, trying to answer all your questions. So stay with us and we'll keep answering some live as well. D r selection Gary is a common topic here at ASCO, where sometimes if you have a large enough pipeline, the difference in material savings can be significant by just switching from a d r 11 to 13 five. So we've got the list here of dimension ratios in front of everybody. Let's stick with d r 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 d. R system and how it's used in HTP when it comes to system selection. Right? So the d r 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're open and closing a valve HTP 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 D 11 200. We have a occasional surge event opening, closing a hydrant, something to that massive impact on surge velocity. Polyethylene pipe can absorb that up to 400 psi. Right temporarily. And in a lot of cases, the D. R is going to play a role in flow as well. We've got an odd controlled piping system here. As you increase the thickness of the pipe, there is a slight reduction in. If you want to talk about Gary, 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 get them with some EPA. Can you use a 12 inch HTP In a lot of cases, yes. And relatively not all dealers are the same, right? PVC, see, 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 degraded. If you get a pressure class, let's take their drug 18 that's a 235 PSI pressure class of pipe. Nobody runs 235 PCI through that dry 18 PVC pipe. They direct it when they have surge accounted for. And so now that makes it equivalent. We don't have a drug 18 polyethylene, but working pressure wise, we have a d r 17 Those are fairly equivalent in terms of both pressure capacity and even ID. Yeah, we're there's got to be some great resources towards the end. We've got a couple more questions here. Johnny Vasquez Gary is asking about this chart right here, which is do you have a chart where we can find the pressure allowed according to the service temperature? I know you take a look at this chart frequently. Yeah. Do you want to maybe go into this a little bit in detail? Right. So polyethylene being it's a thermoplastic, right. As temperatures elevate the the strength of the HTP gets reduced. And once we achieve a certain threshold, then the know we have to direct that pipe for higher temperature applications. HTP Standard HTP 4710 is rated for up to 140 degrees Fahrenheit operating pressures. But even at 140, you have a multiply of a point six per the standard, which means that take that 200 PCI pipe rate will we are now rated it if we're running it at 140 degree internal temperature that's now degraded to 120 PCI working pressure. So we've got the chart here. 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 of that. Absolutely. They can get this in and PPE documentation as well. Will, Now there is a you know, somebody may have a question that, well, what happens if my operating temperatures above 140. Right. And we're seeing that more and more 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, where these temperature that can actually have pressure capacity up to 180 degrees Fahrenheit operating. And we've done some programs on PERT in the past as well. Keep reaching out to us for those rapid fire questions. Gary here, can piping be colored in the field? Is there a little paint gun that you can just kind of scratch on there? I mean, I have seen spray paint cans being done on pipe that's been exposed, unfortunately. Will 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. Yeah, a lot of gas related questions we typically see yellow stripe for gas related products and applications, but that doesn't mean that yellow stripe can be used for something else in a minor, for instance, right? I mean, it's it's really up to the individual owner and the regulations and codes that that go along with it. But the striping is important. If you think about if everybody put polyethylene pipe in the ground for their all their sewer, water, gas, if everything was black, trying to track, you know, trying to guess which one 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 one of our good friends here on the program, the anonymous attendee, is asking, is there a good availability of all dealers? Gary, 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 pretty much any DRT that you're looking for as long as it's within the seven, nine, 11, 13, five, 17, 21, 26 or 32 five. It's only taking me eight years. So but reach out to us and we'd be happy to be put put together a budget quote or lead time for your specific project and example. An escrow 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, Gary. We've got a lot to cover. Fabricated fittings. F 2206 is a big one for us. Yeah, it's 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 any time that we get into fabricated fittings where we're talking about miter joints, sections like we see on these images here, will, you've got an elbow that's got miter sections fuzed together to make that 45 or 90 degree elbow. Any time we cut on a minor polyethylene, the pressures do, the material is degraded. So if we have a 11 pipe system and we need to maintain that 200 pieces working pressure, we go to put in a miter and elbow that is D rated about about 25% sure. So we need to make that elbow out of the next higher d r, which would be adr9 so that the elbow, the fitting has the exact same pressure rating as the pipe system. It's joining two. We've tried to simplify that for everybody in the in the field with what we call R equivalent dimensional ratio. Yeah. This is some very important here because this term really helps everything out a lot should make it really simple. If you're putting in a d r 11 pipe system, then you're going to want ETR fabricated fittings, ETR 11 fabricated fittings. That means it matches the d r of the deal of the pipe, right? Yep. Gary, can you fuze different DS together. So can I use ADR nine to ADR 11? Yes. Per the ASTM standard for fusion joining you are allowed 1dr variation in the pipe which actually I think the standard equates to about a 27% thickness difference differential. But it's too easy. Say 1dr and we can kind of groove out some of those ends as well to make sure that there goes ends match up if you're using a beefed up fit if they need to. And if you're doing a simple project, a fire main project and using FM material, it is automatically made for you per our standard. Yeah, I'm sure I don't have an earplug in my ear, but I bet you if I did, the producers of this fine program would be telling me, please keep the questions coming. We've got just a couple of hardworking 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. Gary. Do we have to buy them lunch for working? Well, I think you do. So. So let's move on, Gary, from fabricated fittings, we're now talking about some performance related elements to polyethylene. And this is this is kind of a big part of the reason we're so passionate about HTP is because of all the different design elements that we think HP 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. HTP Let's start with maybe the thermal effects of HTP. We are getting this question a lot. Okay, I'm design. I've decided to use HTP. 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 as I think it's kind of a no. Yeah, it does. You know, because when you you look at 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 the till you fully understand what's going on. So with polyethylene pipe being a 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 HDP pipe, if you take this example, will two inch are 11, 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 ten degree temperature change for every 100 foot says that pipe is going to move eight inches. Well, if you're sitting there behind a desk, calculate eight inches, you're like, that's a lot of movement. How am I going to hold restraints? Eight inches of of movement. When you put the numbers to it, that force that that movement generates is only about £321. That's putting a couple of sandbags on the pipe. Feasible ground Expressway Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's not a lot to probably hold that pipe and keep it from, you know, that £321 of movement. So it's really minimal, minimized substantially. We bury it, we put some soil on it. It's not going to move. Conversely, we compare that to carbon steel. Right? We know. Robert Strong Right. We run the same calculations for them based on their expansion coefficient says that pipe's only going to move 3/5 of an inch. I mean, that's not much, that's not much. But look at the a force that it takes to restrain that three fist movement over £8,000. Significant, right. Even you can't hold that one back. Yeah I think I could but yeah so Gary I mean a lot of the times though, we're looking at this and I mean just ground weight in a lot of ways restrain HDP pretty well. Yeah. 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, the consideration when you have this is when you transition back to other materials. Exactly. If we're going to touch on, are we going to do that ahead of ourselves? Okay. We're going to touch on that here in a little bit. All right. I was going to ask Gary about Fusions. Right. The the whole point of using HTP is we're developing a fully fuzed monolithic system. The best part about the Fusions is once you have a fuzed together, you don't have to worry about that joint with any lineal expansion because it's all one one. Exactly it is. It's 10,000 feet. It's one 10,000 foot piece of pipe. Very obvious and evident here using the bend radius for creative installations. Right. So if we look at some of these pictures, Gary, I'm looking at pipe that has at least a couple of joints in each one of those pictures at the very least. But you can see here that in one they are using a tree. Gary, that might be you in the corner there, although I doubt you'd work that hard out in a job site. But the bend radius is allowing an easy installation into that looks like a drill or some sort of a trench list method below that is actually a a job where they eliminated fittings. Tell us how easy it is to do that with HTP. It really is because of that burn rate that your referencing there will. There's approximately 25 times the outside diameter. I mean, you can do 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 a fitting in there to make those directional changes. Sure. If you took PVC pipe, for example, and or even duct the layer pipe, it would take over 250 foot to try to make that radius around it just 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 materials. So do you recommend, you know, 11 and a quarter degree elbows, 22 and a half degree elbows. Most 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 in. There are a few occasions in real tight urban settings where we may need to put a particular fitting like that in a 22 and a half, but not as common. Razvi is asking some good questions here. Gary, can you have joints in those bends? And what about having maybe a 45 degree elbow or a T or some sort of a fitting in those bends? How does that all work? Request? So I'll start with this first question. 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 or 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 for about 25 to 100 times the outside diameter. It changes just due to the stiffness, correct? Yeah, exactly. So, you know, the other the other clarification there, Gary, is you wait for that rough handling time. If you use something, don't go ahead and bend it in in a tight circle. Right, right away. You want to make sure you're waiting a little bit for that rough handling time to so elapsed. But but great question, Roger. 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 television, live zoom or real TV because we always get the math wrong here. But let's say I've got a ten inch zero 11 pipe and I'm trying to bend it in a circle based on this calculation, we're taking 25 times ten inches. That's 250 inches to give us the radius of that circle. Is that how easy the math works? Well, I'd hate to correct your math well, but if you would give you a tip for easier start with 20 inch pipe, because 20 inch pipe is nominal. You're right. Ten inches 10.75. So now I got to do all right. This is why I have the area around. This is this is this is perfect, you know, especially for that one. So again, please reach out to us if you have any questions on bending, feel bending, 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'll 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, Gary, with the mentioned ratio selections. But I love this graph because it really does show you, for instance, if we're working on a project and it's only 120 pieces operating, do I need a d r 11 for 200 PSI? If I'm worried about building some sort of safety factor in there, do I need a two 54.9? If I want to a two times safety factor, please 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, yeah, if you've got you don't for 125 PSI, you don't need a d r 11, you may need a d r 11 will from based on an installation map area like weight, like directional drilling, where you're getting and 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. Okay. So we're looking at birth strength down there, Gary. You know, very rarely do we see a HDPE burst if you're looking at a d r 11 system and that's that system's hitting 800 pieces, he probably got bigger problems than just something else is going to say. That type of does feel what does that look like is is does it split down the whole length of the system or is it they call it a fish mouth. We're and basically what happens is, you know, the pipe expands to a point where it's 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 another pipe materials. Gary, 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 HTP, which is chlorine resistance. I think there's been a lot of information out there maybe from past resins and experiences that happened decades ago that is giving HTP kind of some black eyes back then. But all this is is now part of the 4710 CC three rest right. And CC three is the highest designation that we have for for piping material right now. The standards that we referenced earlier, the ADA standards have have somewhat addressed this too for the particularly the service piping the from the mains up to let's say, homes or businesses, the C nine or one that all requires dr9 now for HTP is is the required standard dimensional ratio for that pipe as part of the ongoing effort to to account for the chlorine. But the CC three the DA nine designation has pretty much eliminated any issues that we had in previous time with with chlorine and polyethylene. Any more information on this? Please go with a C on the one for references. Six P.E.I. 1044 and 1049 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. Gary, next stop, 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 HTP 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. Very a lot of questions about betting, Max, cover a lot of man, this plastic pipe is going to break down. We got it. Got it treated very, very carefully. As if, in your experience. Yeah, all all the time. There is a lot of uncertainty with people, especially if they're new to using it. Will the ones that have experience 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 does do it, does it require betting, 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 reference m 55 there. But you know, essentially some of this comes to based on the R that you have Will, if you're using a D, R 13, five or thicker pipe, you know, you're betting you don't really need a sand betting, right? You're not having to haul truckloads of sand out to sell. You just use native backfill. The biggest concern that we have with polyethylene and really for any thermoplastic 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 on 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 R 26 or 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. Sure. Let's also talk about soil loads. Gary this 8 a.m. 55 design window's great. It can kind of keep pointing in the right direction for, you know, men and macs covers with age 20. Right. And in in in a drainage selection. You want to walk us through that real quick. Yeah. So as you see in their dr7 to 21 those are the most common sizes If you've got an h 20 highway loading where you had trucks and equipment driving over it, your minimum is three foot of cover from from the top of that crown of that pipe also to the to the surface of the road or, or what have you without a h 20 live loading like let's say just a gravel area or, you know, you're only going to get a deer walking over it. Exactly. Yeah. Two foot of cover is sufficient because we're not we're not having that way. Compressing, compressing down on that pipe and your maximum depth is 25 foot. You know, we've even but we know we've done directional drills that are even greater than that, greater depth than that. And that's when we might look into a thicker dimension. Exactly. Yep. Let's move on to maybe, you know, installation thing effects are going to happen as you're pressurizing that system for such, in effect right here. For instance, when when we're putting in a pressure the system, what are some things that are going to happen to a thermoplastic a little more flexible, a little more forgiving? And what do we need to to kind of take into account? 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 it expands 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 fuzed. It's all well, stress relieve itself. Right? Where we have the concern is when we transition or we connect to that to an existing material dump, the layer, any any non polyethylene material. Now we've got a transition point that could cause 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 point. Sure. And so we've got to account for that in some a method that is either using a thrust 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 M.J. adapter 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 on, not the joint itself. That mechanical connection is fully restrained. Well, the the problem is downstream is this balance is the 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 2 to 3 joints downstream on the unrestrained pipe and restrain those. Right. A lot of things to discuss here, Gary, But 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 HTP is that it is a fully restrained system you're putting in 19. You don't have to have a thrust block on the other side of that example. And this really is a very helpful way to have ACP and your your systems be installed. There's a couple of different methods to be able to put HTP encased in concrete. It doesn't like to stick to anything, but HTP. So we really have to put a lip there, in this case, a wall anchor or a flat restraint. What do you prefer in those two? Well, you know, it just depends on the situation I've done while anchors for new construction. If somebody is going to be pouring a foundation wall, let's say around the pipe, you've got your I don't 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 flex restraints. Right. Because then I 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 restrain that, restrain that pipe. Each one of those flex restraints will will hold resist about £7,000 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 you may require two or three, three of these four of these on in a particular area. Sure. Yeah. These are great products and their availability. These are the things, Gary, that we typically see at the end of the project 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 here. Gary, this beautiful looking supported, it's almost like it could go in the loop. It's a work of art. You're projects now? I don't know quite that 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 esthetic and a functional practice, Right. Yeah, 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 pipes are going to be exposed to. 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 pipe is subjected to a significant overpressure, how soon should it be replaced? So if we're looking at maybe a surge pressure, an event of of two times, three times, what are your thoughts on that? 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 PCI 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 am I highly doubting 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. Phil Roberts asking another good one. If you're if you're joining restrain ducts, aren't you? Or would you rather have the thrust block on the air or restrain the duct, align my preferences? The thrust block is much easier. Those flex restraints are much easier than exposing three or four joints downstream and having to I mean, you're doing multiple fittings with the Duct Alliance downstream, mega lugs and all these other things that you've got to go on to restrain. So a flex restraint. If you've got the space, you've got the ability to do it is much, much easier. Rapid fire. Gary, we'll see if you can keep up. Hill is also asking he's in Arizona with our good friend James. What do you do about UV protection for exposed? HTP 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 thousands of miles of HDPE pipe in cycles again. Exactly So that have been exposed for decades without any a detriment to the HTP itself. The only time that breaks is when Mike James is installed right here. Well, yeah, yeah. So let's keep going here. Gary appreciate all the questions. Everyone, please keep them coming. Let's talk about pressure testing with HTP. This is a great question. We get a lot of maybe some guidelines for pressure testing. Now, ASCO 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. There's even an STM standard. Will 2164 that can walk and guide anybody right to the the pressure testing parameters as well as different pipe manufacturers of polyethylene that all have the 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 make up 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 the best way to accommodate the testing. We could probably spend a whole episode talking about pressure testing. Yeah, 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 ten VSI in the first 30 minutes. What what does that tell you? Gary Oh, that. I'm not concerned about that ten PSA drop. Well, because you know, we've touched on it expansion of polyethylene pipe. So that's when you apply that water in 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 make up 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. We also get a lot of questions, Gary, about connecting into other materials. Now, this might not be about, you know, restrained 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, let's start with the top one there Will. That's a flange connection. And you can see that picture. We've got a slab and 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. And that was a good old Friday afternoon session. I think that was your job? It was, yeah. Did you do that fusion AT No. Nobody can trust me with 36 inch fusions. Okay, So we can do flanges. That is the most common method for transitioning that to other materials. But we also have mechanical connections. 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 you, which means you can't do a fusion of any kind here. So now we look at mechanical connections. The colic is one example and there's a number of others of those mechanical connections. Here. We've got an MJ mechanical joint, so if we're transitioning to a bell and stick it or a valve that has that MJ connection on it, this is what we do. Fuze the 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 be steel, carbon, steel, stainless steel duct, the wire. We've got threaded connections for just about, we've got male threads, female threads, 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 application. Now, are all of these connections restrains, fittings, anything, anything that's fuzed, that mechanical joint, that MJ adapter we talked about earlier, that is a fully restrained connection. Those are the Tali couplings are fully restrained. Now there are some mechanical connections that are not restrained, and we'd have to go in and incorporate Meg additional Meg Right. Some type of additional restraint device, right. For that application. The bottom line, Gary, is you almost have too many options when it comes with ATP. What color do you want? What did you want? How do you want to connect this into there? What would you like this fitting to look like? I think that's really the the benefit of using HTP is you have this opportunity to use basically an unlimited amount of resources to get exactly the design that you're looking for. So right. You know, in the in the hundred years since Garry's been working here, they really figured out all the questions, haven't you? So just about right you know but that's also the great thing about Esko and so what we can we can help kind of navigate and sort through what or what are the best choices for every job. No. Two jobs are the same. After seeing so much over 50 years in business, you know, that's what that's what happens. Exactly. 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 HDP, 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 is answering. I don't have any projects. One person from the PBC lobby is is saying not likely to use HDP. I need to talk to him. So we listen regardless of where you stand, we really appreciate you spending time with us to learn about HDP. And you know, this is all for educational benefits, which is really important to us here at Esko. So, Gary, if people want to take a deeper dive into the resources, what are some of the resources available to everyone you know, in the toolbox of ammunition for their disposal? A lot of light reading here, Will, that's available to everybody. The 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 aid from the ASTM standards, you know, to burial to testing and guidance, all of those up the are in here in the handbook a WW am 55 is another great resource particularly for those that are doing those municipal applications. Another organization that we're a part of and happy to support the alliance does a traveling roadshow throughout the country every year. Great resources on their website, case studies, references, referrals and people can go see what other people are doing with the HDP. And then, of course, our very own Cisco website will full of great information and tools to help assist and even with links to some of these others if they need it. I always start with the PI handbook, Gary, and then you see you kind of work your way back from there. Just such a great resource. I'll give you a break so you can drink some water. This htp pipe calculator is fantastic. The FDP presented by PI really gives you a lot of easy to use and easy to understand calculations on a lot of the subjects we're talking about Support spacing, Lenny no expansion, burial loads, pressure surge, all of 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 this. You can go as deep or kind of as shallow, and I'm pretty good on those points today as you like with this app. Next up, we've got the API 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 different the thickness of deep. See your doctor iron. You probably use this quite a bit, use that use that one all the time. Well, and it is a great tool because it allows the designer, the operator or whoever, meaning the information in 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 they're this is a great way to really compare and see which one is going to provide you the most long term benefit. Sure. So, Gary, 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 sea use, please go ahead. Scan this QR code. I know this is a common question that we get. We are happy to provide PDF use any sort of engineering credits needed. Please go to that website, esco dash pipe dot com backslash. See you and go ahead and fill this form out. We are getting a lot of people through the system and are going to need a couple of weeks to process these. So please give us just a little bit of 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'll be we be more than happy to help. But Gary, before going, who is this guy, I'd like to answer maybe some questions live. Are there differences in lead times between dips and sizes? Yes. The short answer is yes. Yep. Dips is not as common in our HD 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 o.D material. We have a couple of areas regionally in the country that inventory and stock dips type, but across the entire country, I don't know where the question is coming from. If if they were from Florida, I'd tell them, yes, it's readily available. If if they're from another. I don't know if we know that. Bottom line is, you know there is there are some differences in availability with EFPs. Absolutely. EFPs. Okay. Are larger diameter HDPE pipes, 42 inch, 48 inch, 54 inch available at higher D.R ratings like D.R. nine D.R 11. There are limits to what the HDPE pipe can be produced at, but that is constantly changing and evolving. Will So excuse me, if there is a particular need, 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 thicker every day. We've recently done an 88 inch project that's the largest like it was largest, largest pipe in North America ever installed. And I heard a rumor, Gary, I don't know if I'm allowed to say this or confirm this or not. I do believe we're going to be doing a large diameter piping episode here coming up shortly. So stick around for that one. I can weigh 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 co extruded 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. This I have I have heard and discuss 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 aspect. Right, Right on that inner 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 that comes to my mind. Gary is like a heat trace type situation with a thin layer pre insulation, some slots for that. Yeah, that's razor wire 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 co extruded with the poly. Right. So let's keep going here. We had a couple of questions about Fuzing maybe a 3608 247 ten using MDP MDP to HTP, maybe some some dissimilar types of products being fuzed together per two. HTP What are your thoughts on that? So it depends on the material. So you mentioned pert. HTP Both of them are 4710 the fusion procedures for PERT and for standard 4710 pipe are exactly the same. So essentially you could fuze pert straight to htp, but I would question anybody who's doing that is if 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? What is Susanna's asking? What is the best method to connect eight inch 1982 before I was born? So 30 they'll probably use that. 34 over 640 is going to be 406 3408 she's saying okay and 47 again, good news. Their fusion procedures are identical. Yep. 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 many good questions. There's no way we get to all of them. So thank you for that. Let's bring this thing home. Gary, I'm going to go ahead and talk about this great company that we work for, Esko 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, is something that we're here to do. So we are a national solutions provider specializing in materials, supply, fusion equipment, sale rental technician services, training certifications, anything to do with HTP, including custom and standard fabrication and stuff like this. 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 it. Can you put me on the screen so I can do the the subscribe to? Yes, there you are. 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, ESCO dash, pipe, dot com slash. Q 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 question before we bring this thing home. Gary, which of the following topics would you like more information this will help us dial in and cater to future ASCO 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? Gary Oh, me, you got me. You got me excited for the the large diameter pipeline. I'm, I think already chomping at the bit. I think I'm pretty pumped for that. But that was fun because those are pretty unique. We'll see if we can get Donnie Kaiser up here to be on camera, so we'll see luck with that. Anyways, I'd like to. We've answered some questions. Gary, is there anything else you'd like to say? No. We appreciate everybody participating and joining us here and I hope it's been beneficial for them. I always enjoy talking, talking the story, helping people choose a better alternative for their piping system and a huge thanks to Jeremy Becker and Timmy Tipton today for answering those questions in real time. Yeah, that's going to cost me a lot. I know it is. Well, on behalf of everybody here at Esko Industries, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to join us. Talking about HDPE Pipe. We hope you learn some things and we'll see you next time on an episode of Esko Insights in The Mean. In the meantime, stay safe out there and happy for using, as always.