Abstract: The high density polyethylene(PE-HD) pipes with different residual stress were extruded under different cooling conditions, and the effect of extrusion processing on the physical properties and residual stress in the inner and outer layers of PE pipes were investigated. The results indicated that the longitudinal reversion rate of PE-HD pipes increased gradually with an increase of cooling rate, but their hydrostatic failure time and failure time of resistance to slow crack growth decreased simultaneously. On the other hand, the residual stress of outer layer increased gradually with increasing the cooling rate and enlarging the hole depth, which presented a non-uniform distribution. However, the residual stress of inner layer was relatively smaller and the non-uniform distribution was undistinguishable. The validity of the hole-drilling method for the residual stress test of PE-HD pipes was also confirmed by the tensile test results on the different layers of PE-HD pipes.