TPT November 2009

119 / 132

Tube M ills and Roll Forming Lines
November 2009 117 ›
RAFTER Equipment Corporation, USA,
manufactures welded-seam tube and
pipe mills, roll forming machines, cut-
off machines, auxiliary and other related
tube and pipe mill machinery. Additional
services include rebuilding and upgrading
mill equipment.
With the current economic downturn,
Rafter’s efforts have been mainly focused
on mill retrofits and upgrades. Over the last
few years, the company has developed
a simple yet effective accessory for
controlling the location of the weld seam
during production on a tube or pipe mill: a
seam orientation unit.
One example was installed at a
prominent North American facility for the
production of up to 5.563" (140mm) OD x
0.375" (9.5mm) API line pipe. The seam
orientation unit is used to maintain the
proper seam location for subsequent online
non-destructive testing.
The customer reports that “[the
machine operators] are very happy with
the performance of the [unit]. According to
the cut-off operator, who also operates the
turkshead [straightener], once they got it
adjusted correctly and it was holding the
seam between 11 o’clock and 12 o’clock,
they have not produced a single piece of
crooked pipe. This is extremely out of the
ordinary for [us]. They are usually making
frequent adjustments to the turkshead to
correct [for] crooked pipe.”
Seam orientation units for all types of tubes
The seam orientation unit features
remote powered adjustment that allows the
operator to control the seam location from a
downstream station.
This is beneficial, since the effects of the
adjustment are not immediately apparent
– it takes a few moments for the seam to
relocate itself.
The seam orientation unit is also useful
to producers of hollow structural sections
(HSS) for locating the weld seam prior to
reshaping the tube into various square and
rectangular shapes. Some HSS producers
require that the weld seam be located on
a corner while others may require it to be
located on a flat.
Rafter seam orientation units have been
successfully installed on smaller laser-weld
mills producing austenitic stainless steel
tube, as well as larger 10" (250mm) square
mills making HSS.
Rafter Equipment Corporation – USA
Fax: +1 440 572 3703
Email:
Website:
 RT-5500S seam orientation unit
TAIYUAN Heavy Industry Co Ltd (TYHI)
claims to be one of the largest suppliers of
seamless tube plant in China.
Since its establishment in 1950, it has
consecutively supplied more than 1,000 sets
of steel rolling equipment for metallurgical
enterprises and other industrial sectors to
users from home and abroad.
Seamless tube equipment manufactured
by THYI mainly includes piercing mill,
hot rolling mills (three roll and two roll),
centralised differential reducing mills and
reducing mills with separate drive, sizing
mills, straightening machines.
In the past decade, TYHI has designed
and manufactured Ø140mm, Ø159mm,
Ø219mm, Ø273mm, Ø325mm, Ø630mm,
Ø720mm and Ø1,200mm seamless steel
tube production lines.
Tube mills from Taiyuan Heavy Industry
In addition, TYHI has produced a high
amount of seamless tube equipment
such as Ø140mm, Ø170mm, Ø180mm,
Ø340mm and Ø460mm in co-operation
with SMS Meer and Danieli. It has exported
two sets of Ø177 PQF seamless tube
production line equipment and one set of
Ø340mm FQM seamless tube production
line equipment to India.
TYHI has also recently developed and
supplied Ø180mm three-roll seamless
tube continuous rolling mill completely by
itself. It says this will help it to become the
third biggest supplier in the world for the
complete set of hot continuous rolling mills,
behind SMS and Danieli.
TYHI is capable of the design and
manufacture of extrusion forming equipment
of seamless tube as well. So far it has
designed 16MN, 35MN and 63MN steel
tube extrusion presses.
TYHI says it is the largest manufacturer
for spirally welded pipe equipment as well
as seamless tube plant and so far has
supplied more than 10 sets of spirally
welded pipe production lines, among which
one set has been exported to India.
Taiyuan Heavy Industry Co Ltd – China
Fax: +86 351 6360994
Email:
Website:
Read this magazine online @: