Tubes and pipes play a crucial role
17.01.2018 | Salzgitter Flachstahl GmbH
We encounter tubes and pipes in so many areas, and often material from the steel mill in Salzgitter is involved. Salzgitter Flachstahl supplies its sister companies and customers with hot rolled wide strip in thicknesses up to 25 mm and hot rolled strip in thicknesses from 1.5 to 6 mm for precision tubes.
Whether as conduits for gas or water, pipes for oil production, structural tubes, tubes and pipes for plant and machine construction, transport pipes for long-distance heat, gas storage tanks, tubes in cars or hydraulic pipes, specific requirements for the product are fulfilled everywhere.
For example, steel for large diameter pipes must fulfill very tight analysis tolerances combined with narrowly defined dimensions and requirements for the metallurgic purity level. Gigantic presses are used that softly form high strength steel into pipes in the UOE procedure.
Application areas are primarily thick-walled pipes for gas lines, oil rigs, and building construction, such as for trade fair halls or the HDI Arena in Hamburg.
Hot rolled wide strip is furthermore manufactured into spiral-welded pipe. Spiral welding individual coils turns endless strip into pipes with diameters from 610 to 1676 mm. The largest pipes can weigh up to 10 t each. Here again, the material quality is thoroughly tested: in addition to the chemical analysis, product characteristics such as strength, tensile characteristics, toughness, hardness, structural properties and purity level are tested. These spiral-welded pipes are used for natural gas storage systems, gas lines, and pipes for oil transport.
For longitudinal weld pipes, hot-rolled strips are welded together with a longitudinal weld of the two strip edges. The coil width is especially important here, because it must be rolled with special adjustments for the particular pipe diameter. The hot wide strip rolling mill in Salzgitter can manufacture material widths of up to 2020 mm.
Longitudinal weld pipes are used for oil field tubulars, pipes for gas and water lines, long-distance heat pipes, pipe systems for large storage systems, and structural tubes and profiles. These are used in the offshore area, in textile and agricultural machines, for rail vehicles and in materials-handling technology. Complex structural steelwork constructions are required, for example, when building large stadiums such as the Veltins Arena in Gelsenkirchen, the Westfalen Stadium in Dortmund, or the German SkyWalk in the Allgäu region of Germany.
Hot strip serves as the basis for precision tubes, which are primarily used in the automotive sector. They demand error-free surfaces and a very good metallurgical purity level. Compliance with the strictest analysis ranges is necessary because the likewise longitudinally welded tubes are often annealed in order to obtain the required final strength. For particularly precise dimensions, pipe blanks are lengthened by a factor of from 2 to 5 on drawing benches, which produces a corresponding reduction in the wall thickness. Surface damage or coarse inclusions in the material can lead to fractures and damage to the drawing system.
Precision tubes are used for stabilizers, drive shafts, shock absorber cylinders, camshafts, power steering systems, gas-pressurized springs, cardan shafts, A pillars and hydroformed pipes. In hydroforming, the pipes are inserted into a mold and filled with a liquid that acts with very great pressure to form the tube until its shape matches that of the mold. This procedure achieves weight reductions and to some extent cuts down on the number of manufacturing steps for assemblies.
Without tubes and pipes, we would not be able to drive a car, heat our homes, participate in indoor sports, and so much more. The material from Salzgitter Flachstahl makes an important contribution in this area.
If you have any questions, your customer representatives from Sales and Technical Customer Services would be happy to be of assistance.