Temperature and heat effects on polyethylene behaviour in the presence of imperfections

This paper highlights the changes of polyethylene behaviour during various loading rate as well as the influence of test temperature on the material characteristics. Passive infrared thermography (IRT) method and a high speed infrared camera were used to observe the temperature changes of the sample surface during the tests. The experimental program was carried out on samples taken from PE80 polyethylene gas pipes with simulated imperfections with bilateral V-notch, U-notch and central hole. Samples have been tensile tested (TT) and the results are correlated with the temperature distribution of the samples surface.