Analysis on temperature field in electrofusion joint for polyethylene pipes

The electrofusion(EF) technique for joining polyethylene(PE) pipe is widely used in the gas distribution pipes.The quality of the joint is heavily depended on the temperature field during welding.A model of transient heat transfer is established to analysis the temperature field in PE pipe joint during EF jointing process.The nonlinearities of material property, input power and thermal contact resistance are synthetically taken into consideration.The developed model is verified by experiments, and the results show good agreement.The model can help to determine the temperature distribution and optimize welding specifications.