The paper describes the development of a system to create high quality,
automatic sealing of field joints of polyethylene coated pipelines. The system uses a combination of electrically heated shrink sleeves and a low pressure chamber. The selfheating shrink sleeves include electric wires and heat themselves when connected to electricity. A method was developed to eliminate air trapped between the sleeve and steel
pipe by shrinking the sleeves under low pressure. The low pressure condition was automatically and easily attained by using a vacuum chamber. We verified that the system produces high quality sealing of field joints.
Keywords: shrink sleeve,polyethylene costed pipelines, field joint, auto-sealing, air void