Plastic pipes are widely used in urban and building water supply and drainage engineering, power and communication engineering, gas transmission engineering, agricultural irrigation engineering, industrial production and other fields. In recent years, with the increase in infrastructure demand brought about by the advancement of urbanization in China and the expansion of the application field of plastic pipes, the output of plastic pipes in the country has achieved rapid growth.

From 2011 to 2018, China's plastic pipe production increased from 10 million tons to 15.67 million tons, with an average annual growth rate of 6.63%. According to public data, the overall production capacity of plastic pipes in China has exceeded 30 million tons, and there are more than 3,000 large-scale production enterprises in the industry, of which there are only less than 30 enterprises with an annual capacity of more than 300,000 tons, and the production capacity of large enterprises is relatively small.

At present, plastic pipes occupy more than 50% of the market share in all kinds of pipes in the country. Among them, PVC pipe production is the leading product, accounting for about half of the total output of plastic pipes; PE pipe and PP pipe production is relatively small, PE output accounts for about 30% of the total output of plastic pipe, PP pipe output accounts for about 10% of the total output of plastic pipe.

Hard polyvinyl chloride (PVC-U) water supply and drainage pipe is the best plastic pipe variety in China. Products with PVC resin as the main raw material, add the necessary additives (including heat stabilizer, processing AIDS, lubricants, etc.) processing molding pipeline system. The connection method mainly adopts special glue bonding and rubber ring flaring socket 2 ways.

PE water supply and gas pipeline is in the late 1980s with the development of high density polyethylene (HDPE) pressure pipeline special materials and gradually rise. By adding copolymer monomer butene and hexene in polymerization, the long-term compressive performance of polyethylene material is improved. The connection modes of PE pipeline are mainly hot melt socket, hot melt butt and electric melt connection.

PP-R pipeline is the random copolymerization of PP raw materials with the content of no more than 2% ethylene monomer and propylene in the process of preparation, and the random copolymerization PP-R is obtained. The low temperature brittleness of ordinary PP is improved, and the long-term hydrostatic strength and high temperature resistance of the product are improved. The connection of PP-R pipeline mainly adopts the way of hot melt socket connection.

aluminum-plastic composite pipe is a composite pipe of metal and plastic. The inside and outside is a plastic layer, the middle is an aluminum layer, and the middle of the plastic and aluminum layer is bonded with a hot melt adhesive layer. The connection of aluminum-plastic pipes is generally connected with copper parts.

Double-wall bellows and winding pipes are also relatively well developed plastic pipe varieties in China. They belong to structural wall pipes, and the difference between them and ordinary solid wall pipes is that there is an inner wall and an outer wall structure. Mainly used for buried drainage or communication pipes, the caliber can be more than 3m.

The inner wall is smooth structure in order to meet the needs of conveying fluid, and the outer wall is made of corrugated or hollow structure to meet the needs of buried external pressure resistance. The structural wall pipe can save raw materials while meeting the requirements of use. Compared with the same solid wall pipe, the structural wall pipe can save raw materials by 30%-50%. The raw material can be PVC or HDPE. The connection mainly includes rubber ring sealing connection, heat shrink belt welding and so on.

In addition to the above several plastic pipes, some other plastic pipes include chlorinated polyvinyl chloride (PVC-C), acrylic-butadiene styrene copolymer (ABS) pipes for power transmission, PE pipes and HDPE silicon core pipes for optical fiber and communication casing. For automotive, mechanical and pneumatic industry in the polyphthalamine pipeline and for floor heating with cross-linked polyethylene (PE-X) pipe, polybutene (PB) pipe and heat resistant PERT pipe.

With the development of the "four sections" of the whole society's energy saving, water saving, material saving and land saving work, plastic pipes will be promoted to have a larger application market. Many opportunities such as pipe network transformation, sewage treatment, and the design of water pipe network for increasing sewage reuse in buildings will further promote the promotion and application of plastic pipes.

The European Plastic Pipe Manufacturing Association (TEPPFA) has committed to using 250,000 tonnes of recycled material per year by 2020. Initiator plans in Europe may mandate the use of recycled materials in place of more pure raw materials in the near future.

At present, some pipe recycled materials are applied in non-pipe and partially non-pressure pipe, and the use of recycled materials is still not allowed in all pressure pipe systems. Multilayer piping systems will be one possible application area for recycled materials. Co-extruded multilayer pipes partially using recycled materials have similar durability compared to conventional pipes.

In the process of upgrading the new products of plastic pipes, the emergence of modified materials and new materials will be faster. The processing of a single material gradually turns to modified composite materials to improve the characteristics or comprehensive performance of a certain aspect of the pipeline. At the same time, trenchless technology, water laying technology, sand free laying technology, large diameter pipeline connection technology and other advanced engineering installation technology will be widely used.

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