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Stainless steel tubes are often used in applications that need the advantages of stainless steel material – low maintenance, corrosion-resistance, and versatility. Tubing can serve many purposes across a variety of industries, with two major types of stainless steel tube: welded and seamless. Here, Atlantic Stainless covers the production process and the main differences between these types of stainless steel tubing.
Raw material begins in the form of hot extruded seamless pipe, which is then cold reduced and processed through tube reducers in a long, straight form. Cold reducing is the most effective manufacturing method for longer lengths of tubing. Rolled pipes are cut to the required lengths and cleaned to remove debris in preparation for heat treatment, which is applied to remove any stresses that could occur during the formation or welding process.
Various heat treatments can be used for tubing manufacturing, particularly annealing – this improves the structure of the metal and makes it more ductile for use in applications.
Welded stainless steel tubing is provided to the manufacturer in coils, which are then processed to improve the finish, remove debris, or for any alterations needed in the end product. Once the initial processing is complete, the coil is run through rollers to form the shape and prepare for welding.
Welded tubing can be either hot or cold-formed, and the finished results will differ depending on how it’s been prepared – for example, cold-formed stainless steel has a smoother finish and closer tolerances than hot-formed stainless steel. That said, regardless of how it was formed, the welding process will remain the same. The steps are as follows:
Seamless stainless steel tubing can be manufactured using a variety of methods, including piercing, gun drilling or extrusion.
Piercing: Uses a metal bar as its base material which is pierced with holes, then heated and rolled into a tube form.
Gun Drilling: This method produces the best quality tubes that typically outperform tubes produced by other means. It requires a round metal bar be inserted into a straight flute drill.
Extrusion: A steel bar is fed into a tube and worked through a die, which is both effective and efficient, although this process requires additional preparation than the other two tubing methods.
In some cases, cold forming can be utilized if the tubing has a more rare composition or unique dimensions – these methods include cold drawing and cold pilgering.
Cold Drawing: Involves using a die to alter the tube’s overall shape.
Cold Pilgering: Reduces the wall thickness of the tubing or piping.
Both of these cold forming processes typically aren’t necessary when manufacturing steel tubing, but when and if required by specific applications, are the preferred standard cold forming methods.
As aforementioned, there are numerous benefits to using stainless steel for your applications. The material’s extreme versatility and resistance to corrosion is hard to match, which is why there are so many industries utilizing it, including but not limited to:
Atlantic Stainless is a renowned distributor of stainless steel tube, bar, sheet, plate, pipe, beam, channel, and hardware. As stainless steel suppliers, we proudly offer a huge variety of high-quality products and unmatched expertise in our services.
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ALEXANDRIA, VA – Learning the processes of working with stainless steel as a welder is important. However, what’s even more essential is understanding the process of manufacturing stainless steel pipes and tubing. This process takes you through forming stainless steel pipes and tubing after welding them together. Rolling mill technology has seen a vast improvement, from the forge welding process to using tube mills with multi torch tungsten inert gas; there’s a lot to learn from this overview regarding the stainless steel pipe and tube manufacturing process.
To begin our process, we first need to go through the rolling and welding stage. The stainless steel is placed through a checking process and cut at the edges in this stage. The stainless steel is pushed through and morphed into its required tubular size with a rolling machine. After being pressed and turned through the rolling machine, the edges are welded through a heating process called TIG. The TIG welding process joins the rolled metals together using an electric arc that has a built-in electrode.
In this stage, steel tubes are lined up on a fabricator and cut to a required length before heading to the following process. The cleaning in this stage helps remove dirt from the pipes, and then once treated with heat, the rolled pipes and tubes are stripped of any stresses that can come up in the welding and formation process. The heat treatment given to stainless steel pipes and tubing is done with a furnace—the furnace is actually equipped with temperature recorders and controllers, as this can help tremendously with containing temperature and controlling the way stainless steel is cured. After heating is finished, the stainless steel pipes and tubing are taken through a pickling segment where they’re straightened out, and scales are removed from its surface.
Sometimes, the required size isn’t obtained when the steel is brought through the mill directly. When using the cold-drawing process, the desired size is achieved when the pipes and tubing are coated with oxalic and soap solution and dragged over die plugs—the oxalic and soap solution help reduce friction when going through the cold cycle.
The final process is the finisher. Once the process of manufacturing stainless steel pipes and tubing is completed, you’ll now have to take them to a jet printer. The tubes are taken through, piece by piece, and marked with their grade of material, size, heat number, and third-party inspection stamp before being passed onto exporters. After everything is engraved, the pipes are taken through testing for quality and other checks. Finally, everything is packed and dispatched.
These processes are all key to helping you understand the difference between pipes and tubes during your welder training course. Understanding the basic welding processes for stainless steel piping and tubing is beneficial to you as an employee and a future employer.
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