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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.
Tube making
Raw materials for