Level of damage assessment of polypropylene pipes (PPR) subjected to burst pressure tests using experimental damage

Polypropylene Random copolymer (PPR) is athermoplastic material widely used to transport hot and coldwater under pressure. In operation, PPR pipes are sometimessubjected to accidental damages that may cause a reduction inresidual strength or even a complete fracture of the structure.Hence the need to characterize the behavior of virgin anddefective PPR pipes under pressure to develop carefully amaintenance strategy to ensure a minimum cost with themaximum reliability. In this article, a set of real tests ofbursting on virgin and notched pipes was conducted tomechanically assess the level of damage reaches andcharacterize the behavior in PPR pipes. The estimation of thedamage degree by the model experimental damage led toidentify stages of the evolution of damage