A Model for Predicting Temperature of Electrofusion Joints for Polyethylene Pipes

Abstract

With the increasing application of electrofusion (EF) welding in connecting polyethylene (PE) pipes for gas distribution, more effort has been invested to ensure the safety of the pipeline systems. The objective of this paper is to investigate and understand the temperature distribution during EF welding. A one-dimensional transient heat-transfer model was proposed, taking the variation in the rate of power input, the phase transition of PE, and the thermal contact conductance between heating wire and PE into consideration. Then, experiments were designed to verify the power input and the temperature. The measured values of the power input were shown to be in good agreement with the analytical results. Based on ultrasonic test (UT), a new “Eigen-line” method was presented, which overcomes the difficulties found in the thermocouples’ temperature measurements. The results demonstrate good agreements between prediction and experiment. Finally, based on the presented model, a detailed parametric study was carried out to investigate the influences of the variation in the power input, the physical properties of PE, and the thermal contact conductance between heating wire and surrounding PE.