TPi April 2010

Smal l diameter tubes

High precision tubes in stainless steel

High precision stainless steel tubes from Sandvik

surfaces, drawn and polished with a finished straightness deviation of 0.5:1,000mm and concentricity up to 3% of nominal wall thickness. Sandvik also manufactures welded and seamless redrawn precision tubes in stainless steel and nickel alloys, in a range of outside diameters from 0.3 to 50.8mm. One of the company’s specialities is thin wall tubes from 0.1 to 3mm maximum wall thickness. The tubes can be delivered in either hard or annealed condition, and in random or fixed lengths, with an inner and outer surface roughness of 0.4 μ m maximum. Precision, thin wall tubes can be produced in non-standard sizes and manufactured to customer specific dimensions, with precision drilling and cutting offered as added value services.

The UK site of Accellent, located in East Manchester, specialises in providing a contract manufacturing service for precision metal tubular components and assemblies. With the expertise and quality standards to meet the stringent UK and European medical device standards for quality and delivery performance, Accellent has applied these skills to manufacturing metal tubular parts for aerospace and industrial applications where precision is sometimes more important than the cheapest price. David Searle, director of operations for Accellent UK commented, “We pride ourselves in maintaining over a 99% on-time delivery record. To achieve the quality and reliability that our customers need, we have found it vital to source the majority of our tubing raw material from the specialist tube drawing facilities within the Accellent group.” Accellent has facilities in the United Sates and Germany specialising in the drawing of various grades of stainless steels, including specialist alloys, and precious metals such as titanium, platinum and gold. The UK facility uses Sandvik Materials Technology produces small diameter, high precision stainless steel tubes for a range of demanding applications, from nuclear to aerospace, and from pulp processing to medical. The company works closely with its customers to develop project-specific duplex, high alloy, nickel alloy and special grade stainless tubes in coils, random lengths or cut lengths with defined mechanical properties for high pressure applications. Its high precision tube manufacturing capability ranges from 1 to 120mm outside diameter, in wall thickness from 0.25 to 25mm. Factors such as tensile and yield strength and hardness can be adjusted to satisfy application requirements. All tubes, round shapes and profiles are manufactured to exacting standards and close tolerances, including defined

Sandvik Materials Technology – Sweden www.smt.sandvik.com

Contract manufacturing service

a variety of techniques and application engineering expertise to cut, form, weld and finish its products, employing a combination of automated and semi- automated processes as well as using bespoke forming tools to provide the required component or assembly.

Accellent deliberately excludes itself from the selling, marketing and admin of the final product, which allows us to support our customers through the development of their product into volume production.”

Accellent – UK info@accellent.com www.accellent.com

Mr Searle explained: “Our goal is to provide a reliable supply chain solution.

Accellent UK provides a contract manufacturing service for precision metal tubular components and assemblies

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April 2010 Tube Products International