Ageing properties of car fuel-lines; accelerated testing in “close-to-real” service conditions

The use of ethanol-based fuels and tougher restrictions on fuel emissions put a higher demand on car fuel-line (pipe) systems. In this context, it is important to be able to establish and predict properties based on measurements on pipes exposed to real or “close-to-real” environments. This paper presents a new method to age pipes in accelerated “close-to-real” conditions. In this method, the pipe is exposed to circulating fuel on the inside and to air on the outside. The method/equipment allows for non-destructive mechanical testing on “continuous” pipes. The usefulness of the ageing method/system was illustrated on polyamide-12 (PA12) pipes exposed to fuels with varying ethanol content at 50 °C and 110 °C for a maximum of, respectively, ca 3 years and 100 days. “Non-destructive” three-point bending as well as tensile testing was used to assess the ageing-induced changes in mechanical properties. The most conclusive information was that the lowest pipe extensibility (ductility) of dried, previously fuel-exposed pipes was observed at the end of the ageing periods and at the higher ethanol contents. In fact, optical microscopy showed that the tensile fractured pipes, exposed to 25/30 vol. % ethanol at 110 °C (100 h), showed no signs of macroscopic yielding. The trends were interpreted, based also on findings from previous work, as being due to the loss of plasticiser (possibly also PA12 monomers/oligomers) and material “degradation/annealing” processes, the latter involving possibly stabiliser issues.