Abstract: the stability of steel wire cross-wound high density polythene ( PE-HD)pipes ( PSP ) was investigated. Instantaneous and long-term critical buckling pressures-time, deformation-time curves were obtained. For PE-HD pipes with a nominal diameter of 250 mm and a wall thickness of 16.5 mm wound with steel wire of diameter 1 .0 mm and volume fraction of 2. 9 wt，the instantaneous critical buckling pressure increased by 33.3%compared with neat PE-HD pipe with the same wall thickness. the instantaneous critical buckling pressures of the PSP decreased with increasing pipe diameters. Because of the time dependence behavior of the matrix, the critical buckling pressure of the PSP also showed the time dependent behavior.

Key words: steel wire wound reinforcement, composite pipe, stability, experimentation, external pressure