Blue PVC pipes stacked in a construction site

PE and PVC Non-Pressure Pipes

No pressure but a lot of responsibility

Polyethylene (PE) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) materials are transforming non-pressure pipes, essential for draining wastewater, sewage, stormwater, and more. These pipes endure harsh environments, outperforming traditional materials like carbon steel, ductile iron, concrete, and clay.

PE and PVC pipes are favored for their durability, efficient processing, lighter weight, and resistance to corrosion, chemicals, and bacteria. Dow leads in offering innovative PE and PVC solutions with enhanced performance and reliability in demanding applications.

PE non-pressure pipes enhance manufacturing, longevity, and eco-friendliness

PE non-pressure pipes are designed for applications where no internal pressure is applied, such as drainage, irrigation, and conduit systems. They offer excellent processability, durability, and resistance to environmental factors, making them suitable for a variety of uses. These pipes are often employed in gravity flow systems and are valued for their ease of installation, longevity, and ability to handle diverse environmental conditions.

Toughness and durability for an extended system life

Resistance to harsh materials and environmental factors that could otherwise lead to corrosion, slow crack growth or rapid crack propagation

Lightweight flexibility

Excellent hydraulic properties – with less drag and turbulence at high flow rates and excellent resistance to scaling

Low thermal conductivity and greatly reduced need for insulation

High performance across a range of temperatures

Virtually leak-free performance with no fittings or gaskets that could corrode or leak over time

PE non-pressure pipe

View our PE non-pressure pipe product catalog to find the best choices for your needs.

Orange conduit pipe

Conduit

Polyethylene (PE) non-pressure pipes are ideal for conduit applications, offering excellent flexibility, durability, and resistance to corrosion and chemicals. These properties make them perfect for protecting electrical cables and communication lines, offering long-term reliability and easy installation in diverse environments. 

Black corrugated pipe

Corrugated

Ideal for corrugated applications, polyethylene (PE) non-pressure pipes offer high strength, flexibility, and resistance to corrosion and chemicals. These properties make them perfect for drainage and stormwater management systems, offering reliable performance and easy installation in diverse terrains.

Telecom pipe

Telecom

PE non-pressure pipes are perfect for telecommunication applications due to their flexibility, durability, and resistance to corrosion. They protect cables efficiently, are easy to install, and are sustainable thanks to their recyclability and low carbon footprint.

HDPE electrical pipe

Electrical

PE non-pressure pipes are ideal for electrical applications due to their flexibility, durability, and resistance to corrosion and chemicals. These pipes offer excellent protection for electrical cables, are easy to install, and support long-term reliability in various environments.

Man investigating microirrigation pipe

Microirrigation

PE non-pressure pipes are perfect for microirrigation applications due to their flexibility, durability, and resistance to UV radiation and chemicals. They support efficient water distribution, are easy to install, and offer long-lasting performance, making them ideal for sustainable agricultural practices.

Part of the roof of a house with a white drainpipe and guttering

Plastics Additives offer improved processability, durability and circularity of PVC used in non-pressure pipes.

Unplasticized PVC (PVC-U) is durable and long-lasting material, where post-consumer recycling of pipes offers potential for multiple service lives for the PVC. Improved processability and impact resistance is offered through formulation with acrylic processing aids and both MBS and acrylic impact modifiers. Due to their light weight and crush resistance PVC non-pressure pipes find application in drainage, sewage, vents and fittings, as well as electrical conduit.

Long service life

The inherent impermeability and surface smoothness, corrosion and fire resistance of PVC, makes for a lower maintenance solution versus cast iron, clay, or concrete pipes. With addition of PARALOID™ Impact Modifiers, the durability and toughness of the PVC is further enhanced allowing for service lives widely recognized to be as long as 100 years. PARALOID™ Impact Modifiers survive mechanical recycle of PVC and continue to maintain the performance of recycled PVC products.

Light weighting

PVC, already lightweight compared to traditional materials, can be improved further in terms of strength to weight ratio through corrugated designs and foam cores. Such structures benefit from adding SURECEL™ Processing Aids to improve melt properties and facilitate a uniform PVC cell structure in the pipe’s core. Reduced pipe density contributes to more sustainable products through a beneficially lower transport weight and reduced raw material quantities.

Impact / Crush resistance

PARALOID™ Impact Modifiers enhance the toughness of PVC and contribute to crush resistant designs and impact resistance which make PVC pipes an excellent choice for low maintenance, buried or underground pipe applications. Impact modifiers even facilitate manufacturing, by making possible high-speed slot punching in land drainage pipes, for example.

Ease of processing

The use of PARALOID™ Process Aids in PVC induces melt homogeneity improving overall product quality and generally aids processing. PARALOID™ Lubricating Process Aids are particularly effective in injection molding. PARALOID™ Lubricating Process Aids improve hot metal release and avoid sticking to hot metal parts that ultimately leads to thermal degradation of PVC during melt processing.

PVC non-pressure pipe

View our PVC non-pressure pipe product catalog to find the best choices for your needs.

Typical Applications

Unplasticized PVC containing PARALOID™ and SURECEL™ Impact Modifiers and Processing Aids, is typically used in drainage, sewage, and vent applications, as well as conduit for electrical wires and cables.

A pile of white PVC pipes

Foam core wastewater drainpipes

PARALOID™ Acrylic Impact Modifiers, improve impact resistance and durability of pipes and fittings, even under high UV exposure faced by PVC-U gutters and downpipes.

PARALOID™ Acrylic Processing Aids facilitate the homogeneity needed for uniform wall thickness and high surface quality in PVC formulations for rainwater drainage pipes. 

SURECEL™ Processing Aids are particularly suited to the processing needs of lower density and fine cell structure foam core pipe.

A well-drained field with healthy looking green plants

Corrugated pipes for land drainage

Drainage systems are essential for healthy crops. PARALOID™ Acrylic Processing Aids better melt strength and homogeneity for corrugation of PVC-U, whilst PARALOID™ Acrylic Impact Modifiers contribute to ductility, a property, essential during drainage slot cutting, as well as improving impact resistance and toughness needed during installation and service.

a wastewater treatment plant

Sewer and wastewater pipes and fittings

Efficient wastewater treatment, is a priority. PARALOID™ and SURECEL™ Processing Aids improve melt properties and facilitate the cell structure of foamed PVC used in wastewater and sewer pipes. Foamed pipes offer possibilities for more sustainable plumbing through lower transport weight and reduced raw material quantities. The foam structure also offers noise dampening in buildings.

Our additives are used in foam core pipes, twin-wall, and corrugated PVC-U Pipes, for improved melt homogeneity for enhanced corrugation, and supporting better impact resistance and durability.

Blue corrugated PVC conduit for electrical wires and cables 

Corrugated PVC Conduit for wire and cables

Corrugated PVC conduit supports protection of wire and cables installed in buildings and must be flexible and tough. PARALOID™ Processing Aids are important for inducing the needed melt homogeneity and strength to allow extrusion and corrugation. An additional benefit of using these processing aids is the resultant enhanced surface finish.

brown pipe fittings made of PVC

Injection molding of fittings, valves, and vents

Whether push fit, screw on or cement assembly fittings or vents, PARALOID™ Processing Aids offer benefits in all PVC formulations in terms of better melt homogeneity leading to high weld line quality and defect free injection molding.

Blue PVC pipes stacked in a construction site

NSF Approvals

Check out which of our processing aids and impact modifiers have NSF approval. 

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