Recent Patents on How to Form or Manufacture Large Diameter Plastic Pipe

Background: In recent times, large diameter plastic pipes have been widely used in many functions because of their unique advantages. These applications include water supply, drainage, heating network, industrial transportation, gas delivery, agricultural irrigation, etc. Therefore, manufacturing large diameter plastic pipes economically and efficiently has now become an important research area. Objective: This paper reviews patents of plastic pipe manufacturing or forming to provide insights and references to researchers in the domain of larger diameter plastic pipe production. Methods: This paper reviews the Spouted-accumulated Forming, a production method that combines the advantages of traditional extrusion, calendaring, and additive manufacturing. It is a novel process to manufacture large diameter plastic pipes. Results: The experiment result shows that Spouted-accumulated Forming can be used to manufacture large diameter plastic pipes efficiently with lower costs. This paper argues that this novel method will serve as a promising technology to manufacture larger diameter pipes in the future. Conclusion: Since traditional manufacturing processes cannot fulfil the requirement of large diameter of plastic pipes, it is necessary to develop novel processes such as Spouted-Accumulated Forming (SAF, based on additive manufacturing).