In the sewer pipes, reinforced concrete pipes and concrete pipes are mostly used. However, it is difficult to ensure the long-term durability of the pipe due to the corrosion of the rebar which is used for the reinforcement of the concrete. Also, reinforced concrete pipes are difficult to secure watertightness due to deterioration and corrosion by hydrogen sulfide. In order to solve such problems, research on using sewer pipes made of plastic materials is being actively conducted. When soil pressure and live load act on the buried flexible pipe, the load acting on the pipe is transferred to the surrounding soil. So, the flexible pipe will support the load with the surrounding soil together. It is difficult to predict these behaviors theoretically and clearly. Therefore, the design equation for the buried flexible pipe is analyzed by adopting theoretically idealized assumptions and it is estimated through experimental studies that it is similar to the actual structural behavior. In this paper, the mechanical properties of the soil and the polyethylene pipe were considered in application of the method proposed in ASTM D 2412 to design the buried polyethylene pipe. Also, structural behavior of the pipe resisting external loads such as soil pressure was investigated to use a polyethylene pipe as the buried pipe and the long-term behavior of the polyethylene pipe was predicted by the compaction rate of surrounding backfill soil through the field test.

Most of existing buried pipes are composed of reinforced concrete. Reinforced concrete pipes have many problems such as aging, corrosion, leaking, etc. The polyethylene (PE) pipes have advantages to solve these problems. The plastic pipes buried underground are classified into a flexible pipe. National standard that has limited the long-term vertical deformation of the pipe to 5% for flexible pipes including PE pipe. This study presents a prediction for the long-term behavior of the polyethylene pipe based on ASTM D 5365. This prediction method is presented to estimate by using the statistical method from the initial deflection measurement data. We predict the behavior of long-term performance on the double-wall pipe and multi-wall pipe. As a result, it was found that the PE pipe will be sound enough more than 50 years if the compaction of soil around the pipe is more than 95% of the standard soil compaction density.

This research evaluated the environmental impact of polyethylene water supply pipe which is a target of voluntary agreement by Waste Charge System using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). When analyzing the contribution of each impact category to the environmental score, resource depletion had the highest contribution at 57% and it was followed by global warming with 35% of contribution. Amongst the entire process and stage, production of raw materials, production of goods and disposal had about 60%, 18% and 18% of contribution, respectively. For resource depletion which was found to have the highest contribution, production of raw materials, production of goods and disposal accounted for nearly 77%, 11% and 7% of it, and the impact category of resource depletion which belongs to production of raw materials accounted for nearly 44% of the whole environmental score. Here, it was found that 88% of it resulted from crude oil. When analyzing the contribution of each stage to global warming that is the key issue of low carbon green growth, then, production of raw materials, production of goods and disposal showed around 38%, 29% and 28% of contribution, respectively. As the result, production of goods and disposal had higher contributions than resource depletion. Electricity used for production of goods is the major cause of global warming, and electricity used in the recycling process and incineration occupied about 65% and 36% of the disposal stage. In conclusion, we need to seek for plans to reduce the use of electricity through optimization of energy use during the production of goods and disposal, in order to establish an environmental and economical competitiveness of PE-related enterprises that are operated on a small scale.