Harvel: Largest-diameter CPVC pipe
The world’s largest-diameter CPVC pipe has been commercially extruded for about a year by Harvel Plastics, USA, according to a spokesman of the company. The 14- and 16-in. pipes have walls 0.75-in. and 0.843-in. thick, respectively. They are aimed at conveying hot, corrosive solutions in paper and chemical- processing plants. The challenge in making the bigger pipes is not the diameter but the mass of resin present. Harvel has made a 24-in. CPVC duct for 10 years, but the duct is only 0.25-in. thick. The problem was to design a die that could extrude thick CPVC pipe without burning or degrading the material, Harvel says. The solution resulted from a 6-year development program with BFGoodrich Performance Materials in Cleveland, using Goodrich’s Corzan CPVC resin.