The seamless welded pipes manufacturing process starts with a solid, round steel billet. This billet is then heated to great temperatures and stretched and pulled over a form until it takes the shape of a hollow tube. There are three great advantages to making a pipe in this way.
Increased Pressure Ratings
The greatest advantage of seamless welded pipes are their increased ability to withstand pressure. The weakest point in a welded welded pipes are the welded seam. But because a seamless welded pipes have not been welded, it doesn’t have that seam, making it equally strong around the entire circumference of the pipe.
It is also much easier to determine pressure calculations without being required to take weld quality into consideration.
Although seamless pipe can sometimes be more expensive than welded pipe, this increased ability to withstand pressure allows you to use pipes that are thinner and lighter, which can help cut down on expenses.
Uniformity of Shape
Because welded seam pipe is wrapped around another form before it is welded, and because welding adds heat, stress and other extraneous variables to the forming process, it can never be as round as seamless welded pipes.
Seamless welded pipes are a continuous extrusion of the alloy, meaning that it will have a round cross section that you can count on, which is helpful when you’re installing pipes or adding fittings.
Strength Under Loads
Seamless welded pipes can sometimes be more expensive than other forms of welded pipes, but it’s also more reliable.
This is because it has greater strength under loading. Empty pipe must always support its own weight, but when a pipe is filled with material–or under load–it must also support that weight as well. Pipe failures and leaks in welded pipes usually occur at the welded seam. But because seamless pipe doesn’t have that seam, it isn’t subject to those failures.
These benefits make seamless welded pipes the preferred material in an array of commercial pipe applications, including ship building, pipelines, oil rigs, oil field equipment, pressure vessels, machinery parts and offshore rigs. An additional benefit of seamless pipes is that they perform well in harsh conditions, which means that they can be used in extremely cold or hot environments.
This article comes from stlpipesupply edit released