HDPE Geocell – 1.2mm Sheet thickness
One day, I received an inquiry from one my regular customer in UAE:
At present, we would like to explore geocells with new specification requirements (minimum sheet thickness of 1.2mm). Please let us know if you can meet these specifications.
Also provide the TDS & Tentative price list of each grade for our evaluation & further development with lower grade.
Below is the customer’s TDS with all detailed specifications.
Our regular Geocell thickness after textured is 1.5mm, now my customer just require 1.2mm(after textured), so if the price will be much lower than the regular 1.5mm ASTM standard Geocell?
Actually, it is not, I checked carefully with our engineer, even my customer’s requirement for the thickness after textured is only 1.2mm, but the thickness before textured on our production is must around 1.0mm, can’t be much lower than this.
As the ultrasonic machine has the thickness requirements, if the HDPE sheet is too thin, it is very easy to break during the welding process. If any break in this process, will lead to the seam peel strength being very low. We have full experience on this. Sheet thickness before textured 1.1mm, after textured 1.5mm is the most popular and most easy to weld type. Too thin and too thick is both not easy to weld, this is the real situation.
And also due to our customer has the requirement for ESCR 5000 hours, so we must use the Borouge raw material which imported from UAE, regular China made HDPE resin can’t reach the ESCR requirement.
By the way, due to ESCR 5000 hours is not easy to test, so even some manufacturer shows ESCR ≥5000 hours on their TDS, 90% of suppliers can’t reach it, this is the real situation.
Regarding more information for ESCR, you can check my below article:
All in all, based on my customer’s requirements, the prices we quoted are a little higher than the regular ASTM standard Geocell.
