Aging of HDPE Pipes Exposed to Diesel Lubricant

Amelia Habas-Ulloa (1) , Jose Roberto Moraes d'Almeida (2) , Jean-Pierre Habas (1)

1 ICGM ICMMM - Institut Charles Gerhardt Montpellier - Institut de Chimie Moléculaire et des Matériaux de Montpellier
2 Materials Science and Metallurgy Department

The effects caused upon the physicochemical behavior of high-density polyethylene pipes by exposure to a diesel lubricant were investigated, as a function of time and temperature, by thermogravimetric and gravimetric analysis and by FT-IR. The gravimetric data were satisfactorily described using Fick's law. The fitting of the experimental points showed that diesel, which can be regarded as a model fluid to analyze the effects caused by aromatic units present in oil derivatives, has a high diffusion rate into HDPE. The FT-IR results showed that no main structural modifications have occurred after exposure, besides solubilization of low molecular weight units. From the analysis performed, physical aging was identified as the aging process occurring when the HDPE pipes came in contact with diesel lubricant.

Mots clés: Aging; Diffusion; FTIR; HDPE; Oil derivatives; Pipes; Thermogravimetry

Domaines: Polymères

Amelia Habas-Ulloa, Jose Roberto Moraes d'Almeida, Jean-Pierre Habas. Aging of HDPE Pipes Exposed to Diesel Lubricant. Polymer-Plastics Technology and Engineering, 2011, 50, pp.1594-1599. ⟨10.1080/03602559.2011.578297⟩. ⟨hal-00785113⟩