We’re helping you put the “fit” in fittings. From fabricated wyes and tees to the most complex build that starts as a drawing on a napkin.

Learn about HDPE fabricated fittings and structures. We cover design standards, pressure testing, quality requirements, fabrication methods, and more. Discover the challenges faced by engineers and contractors and the solutions developed to overcome them.

Key insights (no pun intended) include:

• Standard and custom fittings
• Process of constructing custom fittings
• Benefits of HDPE spooling
• Examples of custom HDPE fittings and structures

Garry 

If you need troubleshooting like me, I’ve already hitting the wrong buttons, feedback, go into that chat box. Our experts will try to help you get connected into the presentation. And if you’ve got any questions related to the topics that you want to have answered, Go into that q&a box down there clicking your question. I’ve got my wonderful assistant, Jeremy Becker over here helping to answer and we’ll get to all your questions as much as we can. And with that, I want to introduce my wonderful panelists. First of all, Timmy Tipton, welcome back to the show. You’re kind of becoming a regular. Think you even asked for your own dressing room now. For you, Garry. I don’t know about that. That’s probably not a good model. You want to follow to me, tell everybody a little bit for those who don’t know you what you do here at ISCO.

Timmy Tipton 

So I’m ISCOs technical director. I’ve been in polyethylene for just shy of 20 years, and all sorts of HDPE custom fabrications and standard fabrications. Sit on various ASTM technical committees and and ASME technical committees as well. Well, pretty. Seems

Garry 

like we’re need to pay attention to what you have to say today. Well, good. Well, thanks again for joining us, Tim. It’s always great to have you. And right to my left is really his baptism by fire. His first ever insights Lee Mizzell, our chief operating officer Lee, welcome to the show. Yeah. Thanks.

Lee Mizzell 

Very glad to be here. Well,

Garry 

tell everybody a little bit about your, your background. Yeah. So

Lee Mizzell 

I’ve been in the polyethylene industry, my entire adult life on the pipe manufacturing and fitting manufacturing side and then came to ISCO 13 years ago. So I’m the Chief Operating Officer. And I get to get involved in a lot of medical stuff, including being here with us a while

Garry 

I appreciate that, it’s great to have you two experts on with us today to help help us navigate this topic of about fabrication and structures. And what we’re going to go through today. And you’re also my ally, and I graduate, you go right to a tariff. So go online, I bet. All right. Well, let’s dive into this presentation today. And we want to start off quickly with our first poll question. If you would just take a moment and answer this question on if you’re need any additional help information regarding design, quality standards for HDPE fittings, or structures. Hopefully, you all have your buddy answers. Yes. Hopefully, you’re all here to get more information about that. And look at those numbers rolling up. Yeah, we’re almost at a 7030 split there. So a lot of people interested in, in helping they come to the right place with you two guys today. Thank you very much for that. All right. Let’s jump in stand what I call standard fabrication, right, and we’re going to start with fittings. There’s really two types of fittings, we’ve got molded, and we’ve got fabricated, so our injection molded fittings are really limited in size from roughly two inch to 12 inch, more commonly two through eight inch. And then we have fabricated fittings, which that’s where we want to spend the bulk of our time. But why would somebody haven’t use a molded versus a fabricated Timmy.

Timmy Tipton 

So molded mobile fittings are more stock, very consistent, and angles and presentation. If you need a 90 degree elbow, it’s an it’s a 90, you need a T It’s a T. So it’s simple from that perspective. They, they are made to a few different standards out there, but predominantly, it’s going to be ASTM D 3232 six people. And then you start using fabricated when you need to get into the customizable ranges, whether it’s a 67 degree elbow, or you know, a multiple offset elbow. Generally speaking, they’re also larger diameter. So once you get into that eight inch range availability, molded becomes as kind of what you were alluding to becomes more difficult. And, you know, we we make them from heavier feedstocks or fabricated finish made from heavier feedstocks, and they become a lot more cost effective for medium to large diameter. Okay, all right. Well, let’s

Garry 

look into when we talk about fittings, you know, with the molded fittings, there’s a bevy of standards right you’ve got a flange adapter standard you’ve got all of these different standards, whether it’s gas related or or water and sewer, right, but when we get into fabricated fittings were really falls under really to two basic standards, right? We’re talking about ASTM F 2206, and factory mutual or FM ratings right. Once you get level one, have you elaborate a little bit more on on those two different standards. So f

Timmy Tipton 

2206 is for it’s literally for fabricated fittings, right? It’s for equivalent dimension ratioed fittings EDR is essentially saying that the, the EDR and EDR 11 fabricated fitting meets the pressure ratings of Dr. Levin, and site of varying sizes up to 63 inch diameter. It ensures high quality HDPE fittings, the the testing parameters that it requires, which are short term pressurization tests, elevated temperatures, sustained pressure tests, and then really some fusion qualification testing as well. It just gives you the the highest quality fitting available in the market. You know, the second standard we’ve listed is the factory mutual FM 1613. and FM 1613 utilizes a short term pressurization test that’s very, very rigorous. It’s 3.2 times working pressure for five minutes, and then brings the material to material yield at that potential value, right.

Garry 

And there’s three classifications of FM right, there’s 202 50 and 350, or three C to make 335. And that changed? What 2019 1717. Okay, so those are your three standards in FM. Li are are all fitting fabricated fittings, are they designated F 2206?

Lee Mizzell 

For ISCO? The answer is yes. But that is not necessarily broadly true. You know, a lot of people will make fittings that aren’t listed are tested to that standard, but for us, the answer is yes.

Garry 

But all styles of fittings, all caps, sorry.

Lee Mizzell 

Yeah, so there are some fittings, there would be non pressure fittings that would not meet the standard, okay, as an example, so you can get some fittings that whether they’d be dual contained or a sump or a manhole that is not designed to be a pressure fitting that would not meet that stick.

Garry 

Okay, the question I get a lot are wise, are those do those fall under the 2206? rating?

Timmy Tipton 

Currently, Frisco? No, we do not. Okay. Um, generally, if you’re looking at these higher pressure fittings, higher pressure laterals are wise, that are needed, we do recommend going with a T with a with 45, because it’s the easiest and safest manner to accomplish that transition. Very

Garry 

good. All right. Well, here’s uh, here’s a few of the types of fittings fabricated fittings that we get into these are part of the pretty common ones. Right? There’s the why that we mentioned, you’ve got 90s Whether it’s a three segment or a five segment, the same with 45, a three segment 45, or two segment 45. tees, reducing tees, right. So even see one here on the far right, looks like it’s a double wide fitting almost, or I think that’s an overlap fitting,

Timmy Tipton 

it’s an ID controlled fitting where I’m in specifically in large diameters, when you’re using thicker wall piping, to meet F 2206. Some engineers are concerned about the flow. And when you have a full ID bore, it helps, you know, just reach the goal of flow through the pipe. Okay.

Garry 

Well, I’m going to take a moment here, it looks like we’ve got a couple of questions rolling into the, into the q&a. So try to address a couple of these as they pop up. Alan ask why can’t they produce a molded long sweep elbow, they all seem to be fabricated. When fabricated fittings are made, who decides to make it a three, three or a five segment fitting,

Timmy Tipton 

I can take both of those. When it comes to the long radius sweeps, it’s all about just the amount of material which it’s used in amount of the size of the machine to or the press that the mold requires, you end up getting some very large machines that are the size of this room for a maybe a six or an eight inch, right. So the size of a fitting or literally the amount of polyethylene used dictates some of that sort of the limits the limits Yeah. And then when it comes to three or five segment 90, there, that comes down to the flow characteristics of the system in which the engineers designing PPI hybrid PE pipe has some charts on like, on three segment 90s and five segment 90s on the equivalent pipe links on what it does to the flow. Really, that’s kind of what you’re looking at, but from a pressure rating perspective, or ASTM F 2206. That would be equivalent pressure ratings, okay,

Lee Mizzell 

then you’re kind of pointing out the hydraulic difference between them, but there’s also the two segment 45 or three segment 19. It’s gonna be more compact. Sometimes it’s about the geometry and where it has to fit into. Right.

Garry 

Exactly. Great. Alan, thanks for the question. and everybody else Keep calm, and we’ll try to get to him. If we don’t get to it to, on this call, we’ll definitely get to answer all your questions after the show via email. So thank you very much. Let’s talk about how these fabricated fittings are made. Right? We’ve mentioned different segments and showed some some of the different fittings, but you know, how are they put together? In the shop? Right? We’re using, you know, fusion equipment, I assume. But we’ve got a wide variety of methods for making these fittings lead one touch that one? Yeah,

Lee Mizzell 

sure. So let’s start off here. A lot of this is the similar equipment to what you would use in the field, but it’s modified specifically for shop apparatus. So you have a butt fusion machine. But that but fusion machine is either a tabletop machine or has mitered inserts to be able to make an elbow or to be able to make a tea as an example. So it requires some specialty equipment, even though, you know, the theoretical foundation is still by fusion, but it’s kind of specialty equipment to accomplish a given task. Okay, so how you do that. And then same thing with sidewall, you see sidewall fusions done in the field, but typically, it’s smaller diameter. And a lot of what we’re talking about here are larger diameter reducing tees as an example. And then it takes just a bigger piece of equipment and a quite large press to be able to make that joint and also then cut out the coupon that required. Okay, so that’s some of the differences there, then we’ll get into the beveled ends. We talked a little bit about the reinforcement on the exterior, you were talking about the the full bore fittings, the alternate method is to make the feedstock out of heavier stock in order to reinforce it. Well, then at the point of fusion, you can either have a mismatched wall fusion, or you have you can double the end. So you have match, which a

Garry 

a fusion of dissimilar DRS is allowed per the ASTM standard exact right, the exact one dt one Dr. Correct, yes. So that that can be done. We don’t double double every fitting right now.

Lee Mizzell 

Really, it’s ad engineers prerogative, you know, whatever they specify, we can do either one. Okay.

Garry 

Except for I believe that FM fittings, if I’m the standard for that is double the NS is that right? Okay. So if you’re looking at an FM, those would be beveled to match the pipe that you’re fusing to try very good. Would would any of these types of welds or fittings be able to be done in the field on a job site? We

Lee Mizzell 

so that it all requires specialty equipment? And that equipment really isn’t mobile to be in the field? So, I mean, in theory, it’s I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s possible, but it’s not practical, because that equipment does not exist out there in the field. Okay. Very good.

Garry 

All right. We touched on f 2206. To me, and you know, you mentioned EDR equivalent dimensional ratio, why are fabricated fittings D rated, what it’s

Timmy Tipton 

all about the geometry, okay. There’s some stress intensification that happens when you when when you bend the pipe or when you when you have a T. And when you have that stress intensification, you need thicker wall pipe, you just need thicker pipe. And so what f 2206 does is outlines the parameters, and also specifies at least 22% reinforcement for these mitered fittings that occur. Okay. Very good. So this is a chart from that that’s commonly used for pressure ratings and what feedstock DRS are needed to create the EDR fittings. So EDR seven generally is going to be made up of the ER five feedstock and a Dr. Seven teen or Dr EDR 21 fitting is going to be made from the r 70. Because Are there limitations in the pipe thickness that can be produced that you can make a so we get into some of these larger diameter fittings? Well, how do we accommodate the pressure necess requirements in a fabricator fitting when you can’t make a DR five pipe in 36 inch so we do some we have some proprietary systems that it’s a fitting that we call overlap. It’s a process that we use our ability extruders that we make heavy wall feedstocks to make flange adapters and producers from and we’re able to reinforce pipe with polyethylene and then create a thicker walled vessel to then miter. Some of the some of the things that we’re working on right now. 48 inch Dr. 11 or EDR 11 fittings. We’ve done like 54 inch 1763 inch 17 In this and also 42 inch 11 think we have some production right now on 42 inch 11. Okay,

Garry 

fantastic. Another great question came in from Aaron. Is it possible to fabricate fully rated segmented fittings fully pressure rated? Yeah

Lee Mizzell 

The answer is yes. That’s how but it requires that you use heavier feedstock. So that’s really the key is if you’re using a heavier feedstock and a qualified procedure, and it is tested, that design is tested. Yes, it fully pusherman. Yep.

Garry 

So we do, but we have to use the thicker pipe or the overachiever or the overlap fitting depending on

Timmy Tipton 

in North America, there’s some other things that we can get outside of North American standards, that miter angles under like five degrees are considered fully press rated in European standard. Okay,

Garry 

very good. Well, thank you air for that question. All right, we’ll keep keep moving along here. And here’s a you mentioned mitered inserts, here’s a kind of a tight end picture of that, that mitered elbow, that segment being welded together, you can see the the angle of the the cut there, then we use those mitered inserts to basically line those properly, like a standard, but fusion would be performed correct at that point. Yep. Yep. Fantastic. All right. Now a little bit about non what I consider non traditional fabrication. You know, we’ve talked about the fittings, but there’s some unique things that we also do with with HDPE. And what I consider a non traditional way. First one is perforated pipe. So we take solid, brand new HDPE pipe, we put a bunch of holes in it, right? Perforated, why? Why would we be doing perforated pipe.

Lee Mizzell 

So it’s really to collect whatever is in the environment. So typically, it’s either you’re collecting a liquid, or you’re collecting a gas. So you have a vacuum system, and you want to draw whatever is in that environment inside of your pipe to convey it was really the reason for the purpose of perforation. And then often it’s used in conjunction with adult containment. So often, you have something that there is an area that is lined, there’s a liner. And once you penetrate that liner than you want it the pipe to be dual contained. So you want to have a carrier and a containment pipe. And the idea being that whatever is inside of that you don’t want to get into the aquifer or into the environment. Or it could be used in applications where you’re going through a known contaminated environment. And you want to keep that environment from getting into whatever’s inside the pipe. So basically, it’s to separate your fluid from the environment either either direction. Very

Garry 

good. Yep. So dual contained systems, we, we see that quite a bit for specialty chemical handling and some other areas that you mentioned. And there’s a whole line of fittings that go with that system as well to me, and are all dual contained systems make the

Timmy Tipton 

same now they’re not so our system that the system that it uses is a simultaneous fusion setup, where the centralizers or the in centralizers are fused in place to help guard against the carrier pipe movement during fusion. So there’s a compression fit or compression style, as well that’s out there. We don’t recommend it due to our experience with it. But we get into in this entire system, we make elbows tees wise, there’s reducing tees, there’s all sorts of different configurations. And then there’s also in terminations, which are absolutely critical to go from a dual contained system to a single wall vessel again, essentially, we make a complete dual container system out of everything polyethylene, okay.

Garry 

So if you’re looking at a dual contained system, definitely reach out to us to help you help you with that design. We’ve got tremendous dual contained system product available with HDPE. All right now the foot now to me, really the fun fun part of fabrication that is the custom fan. And our old line, I’ve been doing this almost 30 years. If you can draw it, we can build it right. I mean, that’s, that’s been our tagline from day one. And, you know, we’ll just dive into what that looks like when you guys get I mean, this picture on the left here, this diagram. That’s a that’s a structure that someone asked us to build. Right. So you had to take that drawing and turn it into a actual construction, CAD drawing. Absolutely. Right. Yeah, it’s

Lee Mizzell 

really almost like concept drawing to something that is a production drawing. Okay, don’t mean and that concept drawing can take all different forms. This would actually be maybe better than some or it could be literally looking at me. You know, I’ve seen what you’ve brought into camp. But it could literally be a stick drawing, with some with some descriptions on it that we then have to interpret To make it into a production drawing that we then provide back to the customer to say, this is what we believe you want, is this what you want? And then they sign off on that. And that’s what we built. Yeah. So really

Garry 

a great process from a quality control methodology all the way from start to finish for the customer ease ensured, but getting what he expected to get exact. Now we only say if you can draw we can build and are there any exceptions to that, Timmy?

Timmy Tipton 

Sometimes we might have to modify what’s being asked depending upon temperatures and pressure ratings that are required. For the most part, we will come back with a solution that we believe meets the customer’s intention. Or

Lee Mizzell 

there may be some manufacturing constraints where there’s a an area that there’s just not enough clearance in order to make the weld that is required there. So we may have to modify it slightly. But we would go back and say, We can either modify it this way or this way, or what are you trying to accomplish and work with engineering, okay.

Garry 

And when we do fabrication of specialty fittings, again, we utilize a multitude of different joining methods with HDPE. And there’s some of those listed there on the side. We’ve talked about but fusion, we’ve mentioned sidewall fusion, for like reducing tees, branch saddles, and so forth. Talk to us a little bit about extrusion welding, we utilize a lot of extrusion, welding, and in the structure side of things. Once you touch base on that a little bit for what extrusion welding is so true

Timmy Tipton 

for all things are a lot more like a stick weld from a from steel, right? You you’re prepping a surface, you’re putting additional material in after you put a groove in all the ASTM standards. There’s ASTM and other standards that exist for extrusion welding. And what it is it’s a structural weld that will keep the base on a manhole to a tie attached to the manhole riser. And when done appropriately, part of the standards is a very quality join.

Garry 

Is it pressure rated?

Timmy Tipton 

Low pressure, generally speaking, what

Garry 

what is low pressure to find low pressure,

Timmy Tipton 

generally head pressure ranges, so up to maybe 25 foot ahead depending upon configuration. All right. That

Lee Mizzell 

picture there is what you’re looking at where you have a little handheld extruder that is laying a bead of molten material between in this case between the barrel and the sheet stock is what you’re doing there.

Garry 

Okay. I mean, that is I mean, rich, really good looking extrusion? Well, if I may say, so that was good look at well, I mean, right? I mean, look at that guy. And I’ll

Timmy Tipton 

say that no matter what type of fusion we do, it’s all about heat. It’s all about time, it’s all about pressure. Right? I’m impressed with those things. We have the ability to make positive things occur and joining polyethylene. Is

Garry 

that extrusion? Well, also, because that’s on the outside of the structure. Do we do it? Is it done on the inside as well? Okay, so inside and out. And some of the unique fabrications right? I call that one on the left the USS Enterprise and it looks like a Star Trek spaceship. Why can you Why don’t you tell us a little bit about what some of these, these structures were for the unique project. So

Lee Mizzell 

this one happens to be a job in Africa, Lake Kivu, which is one of the deepest lakes on the planet. And there was a lot of organic material that was decaying. And as it decays, it creates this methane gas. And there was the ability to extract the methane from the bottom of this extremely deep lake to provide power to the surrounding villages. So it’s a super cool project going on. You can see some of the different structures that were part of that all three of those were part of that you’ll see some later on also that were part of the actual extraction method siphon itself, that would drop that methane. So there’s a lot of very unique and cool things that polyethylene can do and solve. Did

Garry 

Did we design those? Or did did the client give us a scope of what they were looking for? How did that come? So

Lee Mizzell 

it was primarily the the customer had an idea what they were trying to accomplish. And then we had to modify it slightly for polyethylene, but was really their concept. And then really, our expertise is not in the design of a methane extraction system. But in applying what the engineer wants to polyethylene, you know what I mean, and to modify it if necessary for polyethylene, but it was really his or her design just modified just slightly for polio. Fantastic.

Garry 

Yeah, this was a very unique project. And, you know, they’re using that gas for power there, but it was also a safety issue, right? I mean, the methane coming up was, was damaging and destroying fishing boats and all different things. So really, really cool project. Excuse me, excuse me. HDPE structures. You know, we can make a lot of things Out of just basic pipe and HDPE materials, man holes and vaults in really unique special designs, which you’ve already seen a couple of those already. But here’s a assortment of some other different structures, whether it be a knockout pod or I think that one on the top right was more of the Lake Kivu perforated the siphon structure. Yeah. And actually a really bad thing. Yeah, absolutely. So sometimes we get into structures that are outside the range of normal solid wall HDPE size ranges, Timmy, what are we? How do we still accomplish some of that?

Timmy Tipton 

So we follow? There’s an ASTM that exists for? Well, let’s talk about jingle balls first. Okay. Sorry, Becca. Yeah. So we also make a geothermal balls and in our geothermal balls, we size the vaults based upon the circuits and the size of the circuits in which the engineer asks for. So we can kind of propose, you know, what the, if it’s an 84 inch vault, or a 72 inch vault, or even a 96 inch vault, kind of how can we get all of what they need into the smallest compact space and still make it usable for for customers, we pre test the manifolds prior to shipment. So it’s a it’s a ready to go system in place. And honestly, we’re some of the best in the world doing this.

Lee Mizzell 

So basically, it’s a pre fabricated mechanical, that comes to job site, and you just soaked up all your circuits to it. But I think Garry was trying to ask you, how do you make the larger diameter barrel stock, the 70 twos, and they didn’t do that we

Timmy Tipton 

within our extrusion processes that we have and one of our facilities. We utilize spiral, it’s the brand name, but it’s an ASTM F 894. Pipe to that we extrude on a mandrel. And we make those in sizes from 18 inch to 120 inch in diameter. Under 20 inch. Wow, it controlled Yeah.

Garry 

This one looks yellow on the inside of that, of that structure. Is that still part of HDPE?

Timmy Tipton 

Yeah, it’s a it’s a colored HDPE. And it’s a it’s an auction,

Garry 

okay, that it’s got to be helpful for visibility, because I’ve been in the HCP black pipe and can be a little little difficult to get the proper

Lee Mizzell 

gear kind of your point, these mechanical rooms, these geo vaults, they’ll have lights inside, they may have a sump pump, they have electricity, they’re designed for manned entry to go down and to do any balancing as required. So there’s going to be somebody in there a lighter structure reflects light, and it’s just a bit of work completed.

Garry 

Yeah, really, really neat. Why, and

Timmy Tipton 

then also available, plenty of white, white, right, you know, the gray color as well.

Garry 

And that’s, I mean, that’s a great thing. You mentioned all the they get this on site, it looks like the picture on the right, that’s how it comes on the truck. So all they have to do is set it and make their connections to the protruding lines coming out of the structure, nothing on the inside, right, is that that’s all pressure tested, and everything’s leak tested at the factory at the factory. Yep. Fantastic. If you’re looking at I Know geothermal is really been a, a hot, hot commodity in the last couple of years, as a lot of these decarbonization plans are going on all across the country. If you’re looking at a geothermal design, definitely take a look at using an HDPE geothermal vault can really provide tremendous benefit for your end users on that. And here’s some additional HDPE structures. And there are some specific ASTM is associated with that, once you talk a little bit to me about F 1759. So

Timmy Tipton 

ASTM F 1759 is for buried vertical structures. It’s very unique in the world, as I believe it’s the only buried manhole or buried structure standard in the world. It goes through some different calculations to give some net or some wall thicknesses and really give a designer an opportunity to understand what the loads will be or could be on the structure whether it’s in groundwater down drag load and go through I think series of seven different calculations on determining different safety factors and design factors and use it’s been used since about 1997 with preliminary work being done in the early 90s.

Garry 

So if you said these are vertical, does that take into account then this this this ASTM, like traffic loads things that might be going over the top of

Timmy Tipton 

it, so Gen eight can Okay generally speaking when it comes to polyethylene structures, we recommend using a concrete cap over The top and disperses the loan from age 20, or whatever else it might be to the soil and not directly to the polyethylene top, just for if it weren’t a roadway into the roadway, okay. Other than that, it’s everything else is covered, everything

Garry 

else is covered. Okay. Got another question here that want to tackle one since we’re talking about extrusion welding. Alan asks, When extrusion welding is required inside a structure, what space limitations should be expected to accommodate the welding guns?

Timmy Tipton 

So it’s a welding gun dependent question. So there’s different size welding guns to accomplish different tasks. But it’s, it’s it’s just highly dependent on the manufacturer of the welding gun, and the size. So we and ISCO have varying sizes from very large to a lot smaller and more compact units to get into tighter spaces does get

Lee Mizzell 

to answer it a little different. So it’s one of the reasons that we draw everything in 3d, because what you’re really looking for are those conflicts, your space conflicts to see, you know, can a gun fit in your will work? So we model everything in 3d, one for clarity, but also constructability. So that then if that if there is a problem, it’s known in advance, we can get with the engineer and say, Okay, we need a little bit more clearance in this area, or a different gun. So that’s how we resolve

Garry 

but you mentioned size, and you didn’t say anything about the the technician or the operator doing the work is, is there a sigh? There’s got to be a size limitation for for like, for me climbing in a in a piece of pipe. Right.

Lee Mizzell 

That’s why you’re in studio and I

Timmy Tipton 

think I think every fab shop has has that guy that can get into like, 18 inch pipe.

Garry 

Yeah, more power to him.

Timmy Tipton 

That’s right. Yeah.

Garry 

I better not be claustrophobic.

Timmy Tipton 

Yeah.

Garry 

All right. Great question. I don’t thank you keep those questions coming. We really appreciate it. And we’ve got a great tool to assist engineers or whoever’s putting together or looking at fabricated structures using HDPE. I think, did you author co author, you guys kind of co authored this thing, then? Yeah, we

Timmy Tipton 

did. You know, in this, it really talks about there’s handling and installation, which is a large portion of you know, the success of an HCP structure, right. And then you get into the design, the design kind of walks through a little bit on ASTM F 1759. And then we get into our sample specification, which is, you know, our way of saying if you do this, we know that this job will be successful. Okay. Very good.

Garry 

Now, another fabrication aspect that, that we do a lot that we’ve been involved in a lot, myself from from a sales side and you guys on the operation side, but is what we call spooling. And that’s essentially to layman’s terms, right? We’re taking sections of pipe and fittings, and we’re putting them all together into one. Basically, one piece one one fitting, so when it arrives on the jobsite, it should simplify the installation for the for the contractor or operator. Yeah, it’s a prefabricated

Lee Mizzell 

assembly. Right. So it’s all done in the factory so that then when it gets to the job site, it just speeds up the installation. Okay, so that’s really the idea here is the time savings on the jobsite.

Garry 

Okay. Yeah. So I’ll just say what is the advantage of, of if it’s just fusions, right of doing it in the shop versus the contractor doing it in the field?

Lee Mizzell 

The biggest is going to be tough. Now, you don’t know like this particular drawing, you don’t know the orientation, those may have all been vertical wells. They know. And doing all those in a vertical sense is a lot more complicated in the field. You don’t I mean, yeah, but the biggest savings is, we have the equipment in the factory to be able to do this more efficiently than you can do it. Okay, it’s not to say you couldn’t do it in the field, because because you could, in fact, it will just take more time,

Timmy Tipton 

right? And also get into safety. Right? So anytime you’re doing a vertical weld, and you’re hanging a large fusion unit, there’s problems. There could be problems, right? And then you get into whether doesn’t bother us in the factory exact right. But it does, if you’re in the field of field, it’s a different range, different things that are that are required, you know, if there’s a high wind a lot of times are shut down, and you think of it being a storm day. That’s, that’s typical, but then there’s also wind and other effects that come through. We don’t have to worry about that. Shops. Fantana.

Garry 

Yeah, that’s those are great reasons. And then what

Lee Mizzell 

you get as a quality pedigree on all those fusions, right, and you would get, you know, the data records for every single one of those joints, just for your quality of records. Very good. Yeah.

Garry 

So speaking of that time savings that you alluded to, here Here’s an example of that fitting. So that drawing that you saw on the previous slide, this is the completed assembly on the truck ready to deliver to the customer. And you’re looking at, you know, how many welds and you know, 16 hours in our shop, versus 30 hours calculated by the field technician. And that doesn’t account for maybe in the other delays that you may have encountered when it comes to weather, cranes, equipment, and so forth. I’ve been on no job sites and everybody’s standing around waiting for the, for the crane left to come back over from doing something else. And everybody’s, you know, waiting for they can do the next movement. So big, big advantage. And so if you’re, you’re looking at anything with the fabrication or spooling aspect, this could be a big savings opportunity for you. And the other

Lee Mizzell 

thing could be those are, you know, somewhat critical dimensions that they need to go around something that’s underground are already in place. And it just is a lot easier for it to come off of the truck and be able it fits in place. Yep, fit

Garry 

and play. Right. Very good. Now, you’ve got a couple of topics on here, Tammy, and I know are true near and dear to your heart, that aren’t necessarily fabricated, related. But they are very important in the design aspect, we get a ton of questions, you and I both have a lot on these topics, farm regular. So it’s always good idea to kind of revisit those, especially for anybody new on the insights that that may be having to deal with some of this first one is above grade support, right?

Timmy Tipton 

Probably the number one question I get, can polyethylene be used above grade? My answer is absolutely yes. While polyethylene does expand the contract, you know, one inch per 10 degree Fahrenheit per 100 feet of pipe, it doesn’t take much to restrain it. So you can see the picture. On the left hand side. This is a job site where just the pipe hangers themselves are holding the pipe in place where the expansion contraction is not a problem,

Garry 

right? Yeah, we, we do get this one a lot. And And that ratio that you mentioned the 110 100, right. I mean, you sit there and somebody does a calculation, he’s like, my pipes gonna move 12 inches. Right? You know, that, as you said, very low, high coefficient of expansion, very low coefficient of force. Right, right. So it doesn’t take much to restrain it. And that’s the one thing that we want to convey, but you got to do it properly. That’s right, with the with the right spacing, with the right type of clamps around the pipe, exactly right, not sharp edges, and different things like that. But if you’re looking at an above grade, support or need, please get with us here at ISCO. And we’ll be glad to help walk you through that and get you comfortable with with your design. You The other big one, kind of related to that expansion and contraction topic is thrust blocks, right. And we know HDPE by itself, if it’s all fused together, we don’t need any thrust blocks, right? It’s a fully self restraint system fuse together. Undoubtedly, many of the projects that we get involved in with polyethylene are connecting to existing materials. So by then, do we need thrust blocks, Timmy

Timmy Tipton 

can we do and a lot of times in traditional materials, we have different especially with bell and spigot pipe. So ductile iron PVC, you either have to restrain several joints of PVC or ductile iron, or you need to restrain the polyethylene so it doesn’t grow into that low. Thanks for those loads into the other materials. Again, it doesn’t take much of a lot of times, it’s just a fused wall anchor or a few electrofusion flexor strains, buried in concrete or even sometimes soil to transfer the load. So then you don’t have the movement into the other materials. Right?

Garry 

We very simple. We do you see this a lot. And we’ve seen some improper designs. And unfortunately, it’s not the polyethylene, that is the problem. It’s the legacy materials that that were the issue that we’re not restraint. And one of the

Timmy Tipton 

things we do get that a lot in our part product line, just because of the temperature variance and that they are going to install it at 60 degree Fahrenheit. It’s going to operate at 180. They’re worried about it. And so then, you know, the the design is every 100 feet, they have a thrust block and it’s like no, no, let’s look at the end. Let’s figure out what’s going to happen. How’s the pipe going to expand or contract in their system and then just loaded appropriate. Right, exactly.

Garry 

So again, this is another area that you want to pay attention to. And make sure that that is designed to properly when we’re connecting to In the existing systems and materials that are already left over,

Lee Mizzell 

I think part of Jimmy’s point, though is it’s easy to solve. Yes. You know, that’s really what he’s trying to point out. Yeah,

Garry 

it is. It is easy. Yep. All right back to fabrications. Another another one that we’re seeing more of is flotation for what we call floats, right? That could be a boat, dock. Aquaculture, Penn Station pumps? Yeah, we gotta hold a pump on it on a body of water? How do we do that? Polyethylene works really, really well in that environment. And again, we can do a lot of unique things with it from the materials that are on top of the the float structure itself, right to customizing a particular pin, and we’re seeing more and more HDPE shine through in those applications. So if you’re looking to have any needs for that, please let us know we can help. All right, time for our second poll question. Since you guys did such a wonderful job on the first one. We’re going to throw this next one out. And are you currently working on a project that requires HDPE fabrication. So hopefully, all of our viewers today have some HDPE project that they’re working on, they’re going to need some fat. But again, this we’re here to just help help them educate, on how to design it, how to how to put things together. And if they’ve got any gaps, we’re definitely here, here to help. Looks like it’s about 50 to 53% have have existing projects so fantastic. Hopefully, we’ll be able to help you get through that. Navigate that project. We’re gonna go to another live question here. I like this one kind of made me chuckle. Dustin asked, Are there any fittings that engineers specify that you wish they did? Um,

Timmy Tipton 

now stuck my head?

Garry 

Dustin, that’s a great question. Yeah.

Timmy Tipton 

So with polyethylene, we in our fabrication ability with with the different feedstocks, we can use, we can do so much that it that we can, we can accomplish what’s needed with the fitting, it may not be the exact fitting the engineer wants or, or the exact fitting that they’re envisioning, but it’s still accomplishing the same goal. Okay, that’s really what fittings are about.

Lee Mizzell 

Right? That’s what I would have said is, if we understand their why, then we can normally come up with a solution yet again. So they may or may design a fitting because from their background with metals or other materials may not be the appropriate fitting, but if we understand what they’re trying to accomplish, there’s a solution.

Garry 

Yeah. Do you see that a lot on your on your side of the fence where somebody’s building it, like a steel system, for example, looking dimensionally or what have you, right, trying to do the exact same thing. So one,

Timmy Tipton 

I thought of one, which is expansion joints, don’t try to make an expansion joint. And that was why we wanted to talk about the rest blocks and above grade, right, sort of the same thing. And it’s unneeded, and so then I spend my time convincing, hey, look, this is not needed. And here’s the reasons why. Or here’s how we can solve it. And here’s how we can Okay,

Garry 

so do we do we see expansion loops

Timmy Tipton 

with HDPE? don’t contain Yes, due to different differing temperatures, right? So the carrier in the containment may not be operating at the same temperature shooting isn’t differential expansion. But for the most part in buried piping,

Garry 

the buried pipe, maybe on some above ground, you might see some expansion loops. Yeah, depending on the scale that you see on exact on a steel system.

Timmy Tipton 

So if in the above grade support that is not tied down in any form, you would probably need to have some expansion loops. But if you haven’t anchored that point, more than likely you can get away from your expansion. Dustin,

Garry 

thanks for that question. I really got to got a chuckle out of all of us today. I know and that was really good. And one more Carrie asks, Can You Supply HDPE pipe above 63 inch OD with solid walls? Are we limited to pipe with reinforced hollow walls or the profile of pipe?

Lee Mizzell 

It’s a great question. Yeah, the answer is yes. So the the diameters that polyethylene solid wall polyethylene is being extruded is always going up. Yes. So the historical norm was 63. But now you see pipe That is, you know, two meter and three meter common Well, somewhat commonly extrude. So it is definitely available for larger size. Yeah,

Garry 

in fact, you know, carry we had a project of the largest solid wall HDPE pipe to date in North America was 88 inch diameter pipe. So, as Lee said, the pipes sizes themselves are getting larger and larger the ability with the improvements in resin are allowing larger pipe cell wall pipe

Lee Mizzell 

to be produced. And I think that trend is only going to get so that’s gonna keep on happening. Yep, very good.

Garry 

All right, I think we’re getting close to the end. So I’d be remiss on my on my role here, if I didn’t at least mention ISCO. Who we are, this is one of the reasons that we’re all here today to be able to present this topic to all of you. And that’s iscope, the largest national HDPE solutions provider in North America. Everything, thermal plastic, right from the materials itself, to the fitting fabrication that you’ve heard us talk about fusion equipment spread out across the country, the largest fleet, I think of, of all the distributors with HDPE, outstanding engineering and estimating team led by Timmy and Lee, as well as education and training done by a big group of us that that can really assist whether you need fusion training, you need just training or education on some HDPE parameters, we got a team, we can help you do all of that you can see our footprint across North America and to Canada, and all across the US. And speaking of fabrication, these are our highlighted fabrication locations across the United States. So quite a few that can put together the same types of structures, fittings that we’ve been talking about today. If you’re out there, engineering and you need see us today, please, you can scan the the code there and fill out that information. And we’ll get you those those credit certificates sent back out to you. Or you can visit our website if you’re like me and don’t really do a lot of QR code scanning and do the website. And we’ll be glad to get that information out to you for today’s attendance. And with that we’ve got maybe a couple more minutes to roll through a couple of questions. I’ll go ahead and look here and see what what we’ve got. In terms of questions that might be a good one. Fernanda last are there fabricator fittings to transition to other pipe materials like for example PVC pipe?

Timmy Tipton 

There are there’s several ways to transition to PVC pipe. There are HDPE two PVC transmissions. In some instances, you can use MJ or mechanical join adapter. There, there are varying options and just depends upon the application in which we want which one we’d record

Garry 

right. Yeah, there are limitations Fernando there’s several different options but depends again on your size. As you get bigger the options dwindle considerably in terms of connecting those but you know get with us we’d be glad to sit down with you and with one of our local reps in your area can walk you through some of the different options that are available. Tae Yong asks, what is the maximum pressure testing that you can do in the shop on fabricated structures.

Timmy Tipton 

So fabricated structure is going to for us means in the extrusion welded structure, it will depend upon the components that are in that structure. In certain instances, we will test our standard air tests at about four psi. We depending upon the the individual structure have tested things up to 15 to 20 psi,

Garry 

and we have done some high hydrostatic testing every now. And

Timmy Tipton 

then we do hydrostatic testing to meet ASTM F 2206 and FM 1613. Our facilities have hydrostatic testing facilities. If we need to get above you know that that probably 20 to 50 psi range. We can go all the way up into hundreds of pounds of pressure on 1000. Okay, great.

Garry 

Jerry asks, Does trimming the beat well, at the join on the inside of ACP I have weakened the pressure rating.

Timmy Tipton 

So that is trimming the bead is, is done on a fairly normal basis. If it’s done when it’s cold, it’s going to be using specialized equipment and specialized knives to be able to cut through it. That does not weaken the join at all. You do it when it’s hot. It can if you don’t follow the right procedures. Okay. Very good. See what else we have here, and

Garry 

that’s about it on some of the some of the questions. Here’s one. David asks, is there a standard joint length? Or is it defined by the transportation mode? So I guess that could apply to even your structure length? Right. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Timmy Tipton 

That predominantly that it’s transportation mode. It’s going to be you know, if you’re ordering pipe trucks, some instances, it’s 40 foot joints, because you’re using a step deck versus a 50 foot contribution flatbed.

Garry 

Yeah. Yeah. We don’t usually run into a weight issue right with the polyethylene or have we?

Lee Mizzell 

You can in certain instances, but it’s more about the question being the length. More about mode of transport. Yeah,

Garry 

yeah. Yeah. Or if we need an assorted load, we’ve had to do a few of those. Get

Lee Mizzell 

to those two meter and three meter diameter. Yes, yeah. Exactly. Very good.

Garry  All right. Well, I want to be mindful of your time today, folks. We’re going to call it a day on this presentation. Thank you all for joining us today. Here at ISCO insights, I want to give a special shout out to Jeremy and bear in behind the camera, making me making us all look a little better than we probably deserve. Jeremy, thank you for being able to help with all those questions that were coming in it Timmy and Lee. Can’t say thank you enough for joining me today and helping me out on this topic since my sidekick decided to abandon me today. So thanks for joining us, and hopefully you’ll be able to come back again with us on another insights. Alright, great. Thank you for your time. All right. Thanks again, everybody. And until we see on the next ISCO insights, happy fusing.