How are stainless steel tubes produced?

 Stainless steel tubes are commonly used in applications that require the benefits of stainless steel materials, low maintenance, corrosion resistance, versatility. Pipes can be used in a variety of industries, including two main types of stainless steel pipes: welded pipes seamless pipes.

Manufacture of stainless steel pipe

The raw material starts in the form of a hot extruded seamless tube, which is then cooled processed in a long, straight form through a tubular pressure reducer. For longer pipes, cold rolling is an effective manufacturing method. The rolled tube is cut to the required length then cleaned to remove debris in preparation for heat treatment to remove any stresses that may occur during forming welding.

Various heat treatments can be used in the manufacture of tubes, especially annealing - which can change the structure of the metal make it more malleable in applications.

Welded pipe

The welded stainless steel pipe is supplied to the manufacturer in the form of coiled material then processed to change the surface quality clean up debris make any changes required in the product. Once the initial treatment has been completed, the coil can be shaped by rollers ready for welding.

Welded tubes can be hot-formed cold-formed, the results will then depend on how they are prepared. For example, cold-formed stainless steel surfaces are smoother have smaller tolerances than hot-formed stainless steel. In other words, the welding process will remain the same regardless of the formation. It is carried out as follows:

The coils are divided into specific widths for power supply

Application formation process

The welding roller is used to seal the joint of each pipe

After welding, adjust the welding

Welding rollers can be used if required (usually for thicker wall pipes)

The size of the pipe can meet the required size

Cut tube to determine length - common cutting methods include shear abrasive cutting

Seamless pipe

Seamless stainless steel tubes can be manufactured using a variety of methods, including piercing, gun drilling extrusion.

Perforation: using a metal rod as a base material, punching holes, then heating rolling into tubes.

Gun drill: this method can produce quality pipes is usually better than other methods. It needs to insert a round metal rod into a straight slot bit.

Extrusion: the steel bar is fed into the pipe processed through the die head, which is an effective method, although the process requires additional preparatory work rather than the other two pipe methods.

In some cases, cold forming can be used if the composition of the pipe is reduced has a special size - these methods include cold drawing cold rolling.

Cold drawing: involves the use of dies to change the overall shape of the pipe.

Cold planer: reduce the wall thickness of the pipe

These two cold forming processes are usually required for the manufacture of steel tubes, but they are standard cold forming methods when required in specific applications.