1. The origin of plastic pipes

Although Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) was first synthesised in the 19th Century, the commercial production of PVC pipes only began in the 1930s [1].

The first PVC tubes were manufactured in Germany. They were used to build drinking water and drainage facilities for the Berlin Olympic Games.

The process for manufacturing PVC pipes was similar to pasta production. A Belgian company converted twin-screw, Italian pasta machines to extruders. Those extruders were suitable for processing PVC tubes for electric conduits. Then, inspired by this method, a Dutch water utility in the 1950s founded a company (WAVIN) to mass produce PVC pressure pipes for potable water.

The production and use of Polyethylene (PE) pipes began at around the same time.

2. Plastic pipes are used more than you think they are

In the 1980s, Australia’s water reticulation market was already using PVC pipes about 60% of the time [1]. Large diameter plastic pipes have been widely used for water mains here since the 1990s. They have particularly been used on mining sites.

Nowadays, plastic pipes make up around 85% of the water-services related infrastructure in Australia’s cities. Plastic pipes have long been the standard for telecommunication, sewage, irrigation and gas transmission.

3. Plastic pipes are ‘pipe of choice’… but we don’t really understand them

Even though plastic pipes are the ‘pipe of choice’ for nearly all types of fluid transmission, our understanding of them is shallow. The mechanical and chemical properties of plastic materials are complex. There are also many variations of ‘plastic’ (e.g. PVC-O, PVC-M, PVC-U, LDPE, HDPE …).

This means that modelling the hydraulic behaviour of plastic pipes under unsteady flow conditions is hard. The current design and operation practices of plastic pipeline systems are guided more by experience than science.