Abstracts (Summaries) of Presentations

“Justifying Capital Investment in Productivity Enhancing Equipment”, R Costello, discusses the use of financial techniques in justifying the purchase of productivity enhancing equipment with examples.

“Integrated Control of Processes and Products on a Heat Treatment Process”, J Garcia, presents a system, CIPP, to improve product quality and optimise the manufacturing process, detailing techniques, benefits and advantages.

“Economic Production of High Quality Seamless Tubes with the KOCKS Rotation Mill KRM”, G Kulessa, details a new, continuous process for seamless production from hollow to hot-rolled tube, increasing productivity and product quality.

“Medium Size Seamless Pipe Mill at Wakayama Steel Works”, H Hori, describes integrated facilities for round billet casting, tube rolling and heat treatment, leading to excellent quality and short delivery times, and shows the design concept of the process and its facilities.

“The Maxi and the Mini – the PQF and the Combined Piercer-Elongater”, Dr HJ Pehle, J Metcalfe, compares and contrasts the key features of the latest versions of these two types of mills (Mandrel and Assel)

“Real Time Business Control”,J Meza, explains the Tenaris-Tamsa system developed to increase the speed and accuracy of information and improve analysis and decision making internally as well as offering customers a real time production schedule.

“On-Line Real-Time Steel Gauging with Laser-Ultrasonic Technology”, M Choquet, presents a novel laser-ultrasonic system to inspect seamless mechanical steel tubing, reviews measurement concept, system features , discusses installation issues and typical results.

“Lasus – Hot Wall Thickness Measurement for Precision Tubemaking”, M Leferink, presents a newly-developed, laser-based ultrasonic measurement method for wall thicknesses in the hot section of the tube mill, details variants, shows how it can also measure thickness of tubes with internal tools and reveals results achieved.

“Magnetic Flux Leakage Testing with Rotomat and Transomat for Oil Field and Boiler Tubes”, H Kummel, describes the MFL testing system in the range of small to medium wall thicknesses and how the on-line system is used to ensure process reliability.

“Non Destructive Testing of Boiler Tubes in the Production Process with Control of the Downstream Production Units”, Dr A Maurer, describes the use of ultrasound and eddy control to accept tubes or transfer them for automatic grinding of outer surface defects and re-testing and the computer system for recording data and tube flow control.

“Factors Influencing Heavy Wall Tubing”, O Waerstad, presents details of a study of the parameters influencing the temperature distribution across the weld: Vee angle, distance from weld point to induction coil, spring back, weld speed and frequency.

“Comparison and Tube Welding Processes for Tube & Pipe”, J Olson, discusses tubing from coiled steel, formed cylindrically in successive roll passes to form a longitudinal seam, welding the seam with one of a variety of methods, cooling, sizing or re-shaping with more passes and with a flying cut off to produce cut lengths

“Applying In-Line Gauge Correction and Non-Contact Sensing to Increase Production and Reduce Cost in Welded Tube Production”, WB Graham, provides a case study of the application of in-line gauge correction on high frequency welded tube mills and related application of new non-contact laser and magnetically generated acoustic wave inspection equipment

“Advanced Welding Techniques for Aluminium Tubes”, M Kimchi, describes two new joining techniques: magnetic pulse welding for tubular applications and conductive heat resistance seam welding for aluminium sheet and their many advantages over arc welding processes, highlighting process details, variables, mechanical properties, potential applications for both.

“Benefits of Push Pointing of Ferrous and Non-Ferrous Tubes Prior to Cold Drawing”, GA Mitchell, reviews push pointing requirements in general prior to cold drawing and its benefits over other methods of tube pointing and details tooling, lubrication and desirable characteristics.

“Tube & Pipe Finishing Floors”, ME Pollard, illustrates latest developments that steel or non-ferrous tubes take through a finishing floor, from the cooling bed, through the straightener and onto cutting, hydrostatic pipe testing and all other areas.

“High Production Cutting of Tube Layers After the Cooling Bed by Using Carbide Tipped Circular Sawing Machines to Achieve the Best Length and Squareness Accuracy”, B Traunsteiner, presents details of cost efficiency in cutting methods.

“Curing of Pipes with UV-Coating”, O Gradener, describes main objectives and requirements, factors of the pipe-production process influencing surfaces, overviews current methods / advantages of immediate drying in comparison to prevalent paints.

“Samples of Value Added Technology for Tube Mills Processing Seamless Steel Tubes”, H-J Braun, presents examples of chances for steel and tube mills to improve profits with value-added process steps and the applicable machine technologies

“Welding and Testing Tubes for Hydro-Forming Applications”, M Kimchi, describes a newly developed tube-bulging tool and an analysis method to evaluate formability and flow stress behaviour of tubular materials, a technique ideally suited to determine the ductility and formability characteristics of various welds in tube manufacturing.

“Taking Technology to the Marketplace”, WA Wolfe, shows comparisons of steel hollow structural sections (HSS) versus wide-flange columns and tables that show weight savings per column of 50% plus as well as other advantages that HSS provides in support columns and trusses. Weight and cost savings are highlighted by specific applications and case studies.

“Quality Improvements in Round Bars via a Vibromold System and Mold Electromagnetic Stirring”, JA Carranza, describes improvements in significantly reducing defects like longitudinal and transversal cracks, pinholes, non-metallic inclusions and internal segregation, by 40%, achieved by the oscillation movement performed directly over the copper tube.

“Applications and Benefits of Vision Tracking for Tube and Pipe Welding”, M Wilson, describes the benefits of laser vision sensing for weld guidance for robot systems, including joint tracking for longitudinal and spiral pipe and also guidance for UST systems. Systems are in use with all relevant welding processes including submerged arc, MIG, TIG, laser and ERW.

“Calibration Standards for High Performance Tubes and Pipes”, MB Palynchuck, discusses these as required for a standardised and reproducible reference on which to base acceptance and rejection of “naturally” occurring defects.

“ On-Line Measuring System for Hot Pipe”, B Schoettler, describes how this tube wall thickness measuring system provides information on wall thickness shape along the total tube length and illustrates the use of the measuring technology and its benefits in two typical hot-mill applications.

“Weld Profile Visualisation System for Use on ERW Mills”, B Waldron, describes the development, installation and use of an ultrasonic system to provide real time feedback of the weld area ID and OD profiles immediately following the trim operation, using phased array technology which allows high speed scanning, with no mechanical movement of the transducers.

“Non-Destructive Eddy Current Testing of Tubes for Surface Flaws”, JL Lara, shows that, since the Eddy-current method acts non-destructively at production speed, it can be integrated uncompromisingly in the production process and this surface flaw test method is used at an early point for optimum control and immediate segregation of flawed material for cost reduction at other stages of production or end use.

“Spray Marked Bar Codes on Tube OD for Traceability”, DL Anderson, presents information about marking, reading and tracking of tubular products using painted bar codes; methodology for marking of man-readable data and bar codes on tube OD is explained as well as methods of reading bar codes and collecting data at various locations plus recommended do’s and don’ts.

“Investigation of the Influence of the Pre-Hydro Forming Processes and Development of Characterization Methods for the testing of Steel Semi-Products for Hydro-Forming”, G von Breitenbach, outlines research to improve the competitiveness of hydroformed products made from tubular blanks (steel and aluminium), to simplify the choice of the initial tubular blank during the design process and to make the data clearer and more reliable.

“Integrated Quality Management in the Design and Production Process of Longitudinal Welded Tubes”, A Sedlmaier, shows an integrated design and engineering system of software programmes and hardware devices for tube welding lines; how to achieve high quality tool designs, optimise existing ones and maintain that standard in the continuous production process, using both theoretical and practical examples.

“ FEM Simulation of Roll Forming of ERW Pipes & Mill Process Design”, Dr F Wang, describes how a 3D elastoplastic FEM code, based on the corotational formulation is developed and used to simulate roll forming processes. This technique is applied to the study of roll common-use technology in ERW pipe forming and the development of high functional ERW pipe mills.

“Application of Metallurgical Modelling to Multi-Pass Girth Welding of Seamless Line”, A Izquierdo, tells how a sensitivity analysis has been carried out to identify the effect of chemical composition and main welding parameters on the hardness values in the HAZ of Gas Metal Arc Welding, Shielded Metal Arc Welding and Gas Tungsten Arc Welding joints of seamless quenched and tempered (Q & T) line pipes.