Abstract: A large-diameter plastic pipe is made by extruding from an extruding-nozzle assembly a hollow thermoplastic strip having an outer rectangular cross section and formed with longitudinally extending outer walls and webs having inner surfaces and defining a plurality of longitudinally extending internal cells separated by the webs from one another. Substantially only the inner surfaces of the outer walls and the cell-forming webs are then cooled to size the strip and provide it with a predetermined compressive strength stable up to a predetermined critical pressure of the design strength while externally shielding external surfaces of the strip and thereby preventing cooling of same.