TPi July 2008

Tube making Raw materials for

The Materials of Tube Making In the past decade or so the number of materials and processes available to industry has increased phenomenally. Thousands of new alloys, plastics, coatings, and other nonmetallics are being developed yearly. This opening paragraph of The Encyclopedia of Engineering Materials and Processes is about what might be expected in a standard reference work for design engineers, chemists, metallurgists, and production engineers. What is perhaps remarkable is that it appears in the preface to the 1963 edition – and that it is as pertinent as if it were written the day before yesterday. Except that the word “composites” lay in the future, the tube and pipe industry of 45 years ago could be where it is today: in the midst of an explosion of new materials; old materials in new combinations; and materials both new and old seeing service in new applications and niches. When, at Tube 2008 – the International Tube and Pipe Trade Fair, held 31 March-4 April in Düsseldorf – Dr Elmar Löckenhoff, managing director of the Plastic Tube Association, glanced backward a decade or so, he identified another factor: substitution. “Plastic tube systems have continued to enter new areas of application and have supplemented or even almost replaced the range of hitherto traditional materials,” declared Dr Löckenhoff. He said that the products of German manufacturers of plastic tube were very near to displacing metal gas pipes in residential installations: “The technical and scientific conditions for the use of plastic tube systems in this area have been created. Therefore another market segment can now be conquered.” He might have gone on to observe that technical and scientific conditions are always in the process of being created. Through the discovery, development, combination, recombination, and substitution of materials, another market segment is always about to be conquered.

The companies whose products and services are featured in this issue of TPI are poised to take full advantage of this unremitting advance.