Just after WWII, VCOA developed the “Roust-A-Bout” coupling for use on plain end pipe. This allowed customers to join steel pipes without grooves, threads, welding or flanging. They became popular for making steel pipe repairs or system alterations.

Between these years, the United States sent tens of thousands of Victaulic^® couplings overseas to quickly join portable pipelines that carried fuel to Allied Troops. Thanks to Victaulic^® joints, crews could often lay pipelines faster than military forces could advance, ensuring them a constant and reliable supply of fuel.

The Burma pipeline—the longest petroleum pipeline ever constructed—was assembled almost entirely with Victaulic^® couplings. The 5,150 kilometers (3,200 miles) of pipe, carried fuel oil over 4,184 kilometers (2,600 miles) across the rugged land from Calcutta’s docks to western China, providing Allied troops with more than 568 million liters (150 million gallons) of petroleum during the war.

In preparation for D-Day, military engineers were able to use Victaulic^® couplings to construct portable, flexible pipelines that could be easily and rapidly extended as soldiers moved forward.

Between 1940 and 1945, the U.S. Government launched 4,600 "Liberty Ships." Victaulic^® couplings were crucial to that emergency effort, speeding the construction of piping systems for cargo vessels, landing craft and other U.S. Navy ships.

The end of WWII allowed soldiers to return home. Many American GIs who had installed Victaulic’s couplings returned to civilian life as engineers, contractors and industrial workers, creating many new sales opportunities for Victaulic^®.

The chief engineer of the British Army Staff commended Victaulic’s role in the war effort. “At this stage of the war,” he wrote, “we would like to express our appreciation of your product. As you know, we have shipped many thousands of miles of gasoline pipeline to the Middle East, to the European Theatre and to India. We do not have to emphasize the vital part pipelines, which includes your couplings, have played in all theatres of operation, [including] the successful advances in the Middle East, France, and now in Burma.”

Victaulic^® collaborated with the Beaver Tool Company to introduce a pioneering portable tool for grooving pipe, called the Vic-Groover tool. Now, instead of having to groove pipe in a large pipe shop, customers could cut and groove pipe on-site with a lightweight tool that orbited the pipe.

VCOA developed the “Snap-Joint” coupling for steel pipe, rated at about half the pressure rating of the standard coupling for grooved steel pipe. It became popular for piping that was moved and relocated frequently.

After an impressive demonstration in NYC of Victaulic’s fire protection capabilities, Underwriters’ Laboratories (UL) approved Victaulic’s couplings and fittings for use in fire protection systems. This opened a major new market for the company.

The company’s new Wheel Ezy manually operated roll groover cold-formed a groove into a stationary pipe as the user rotated the tool around it, without removing any metal from the pipe. The innovation opened a previously untapped market for thin wall aluminum pipe farm irrigation and oil field flow lines, as well as new mining applications.

When the oil business was booming and new rigs were drilling in hundreds of backyards in Texas, Victaulic^® opened offices and warehouses in Houston and the Odessa oil flats. Sales volume was rising in a wide range of industrial applications, and Victaulic^® continued to strengthen its market leadership with new product offerings.

In 1962, When the Seattle World’s Fair opened, its central structure was the 605 foot (184 meter) Space Needle, featuring one of the world’s first revolving restaurants. Its designers used Victaulic^® pipe couplings because of their quick installation and maintenance, and their accommodation of linear movement for expansion.

Victaulic^® made its first foray into designing and manufacturing valves, with the first grooved end butterfly valve, known as the Series 700. The valve was created in response to the needs of Victaulic’s^® mining customers, who were looking for an easier-to-install, lighter-weight, low-profile, less expensive way to integrate valves into their grooved piping systems.

Victaulic^® purchased a tract of land in South Plainfield, New Jersey, to construct a new corporate headquarters facility, with capabilities for light manufacturing and expanded warehouse operations. It also began vertically integrating its manufacturing processes to ensure quality and maximum supply.

Victaulic^® bought its largest malleable iron casting supplier, Lehigh Inc., in Easton, Pennsylvania. The purchase provided cost advantages as well as steady casting supply. It also increased the company’s workforce from 125 to 900 employees.

Victaulic^® also began casting its products in ductile iron. The material, developed in the mid-1940s, was stronger, tougher and more economical than malleable iron, with a superior surface finish and shorter production time.

A series of reengineered roll groovers were introduced that could be operated by one person instead of two. The VE250FS and VE250FSD (pictured) incorporated hydraulic hand pumps and cylinders, which made the roll groovers easier to use and increased the range of possible pipe wall thicknesses.

Victaulic^® was able to meet another key market need when its new Copper Connection line was developed. The copper grooved system substantially reduced installation time, presented no fire danger and eliminated the presence of hazardous lead-bearing solder.

Victaulic^® expanded its fire protection portfolio by introducing the Pressfit system, a method of joining small diameter light wall pipe that was new to North America. The press-to-connect system for carbon steel piping installed in a matter of seconds and became a popular fire protection product.

In the early 1990s, Victaulic^® earned ISO-9001 Quality Manufacturing System certification. This internationally recognized quality standard has been a key tool for maintaining the global consistency of Victaulic^® products, services and processes.

Victaulic’s^® pipe joining products also played a key role in the construction of a world-class project, the Channel Tunnel—more commonly known as the Chunnel—which opened in 1992. The high-speed rail tunnel, which connects the United Kingdom and France under the English Channel.

Victaulic^® couplings were used on piping installed during the excavation of the world’s longest rail tunnel, beneath the Alps between Milan and Zurich. The 35.5 mile Gotthard Base Tunnel—1.2 miles (2 kilometers) under the mountains—was a monumental engineering feat, constructed under high-pressure conditions in high temperatures generated by the earth’s warmth and powerful construction machines. Victaulic^® couplings were used on all the pipelines laid behind the boring machines that excavated the project’s twin single-track high-speed rail tunnels.

Victaulic^® created the Victaulic^® Fire Safety Company LLC, an affiliated company to design, develop and manufacture new fire protection–related products for the industrial, commercial and residential fire suppression systems market.

Victaulic^® purchased the Polcast foundry, a supplier of ductile iron castings, in Drezdenko, Poland. The plant, which had been in bankruptcy for several years, was the largest employer in a town where jobs were increasingly scarce, due to business closures. Although the foundry had suitable equipment and a skilled workforce, it needed complete refurbishing and process streamlining. Victaulic^® worked closely with Polcast’s local employees to fully modernize the operation.

Victaulic^® also erected a new 5,110 square meter (55,000 square foot) European headquarters building in Nazareth, Belgium. The company’s global expansion continued with the opening of new branch offices in Madrid, Spain, and Milan, Italy, as well as in the Jebel Ali Free Zone in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.