Forged Seamless Pipe

There is nothing I can do much in this month, because I have to face myself, so I really can defeat myself. I know it's hard but I have to try the best I can do, and while I do that, surfing on the internet and update the Piping & Fabrication will become another option.

Forged Seamless Pipe. Forged pipe is used for large-diameter, NPS 10–30 (DN 250–750), and thickness, 1.5–4 in (40–100 mm), pipe, where equipment availability and cost for other seamless grades are limiting. There are two processes available for the production of forged seamless pipe, namely, forged and bored pipe and hollow forged pipe.

Forged and Bored Seamless Pipe. In the forged and bored process a billet or ingot heated to forging temperature is elongated by forging in heavy presses or forging hammers to a diameter slightly larger than that of the finished pipe. After turning in a lathe to the desired outside diameter, the inside diameter is bored to the specified internal diameter dimensions. The resulting pipe can be made to very close tolerances. Sections 50 ft (15 m) long have been produced by this process.

FIGURE A5.7 Hollow-forged seamless pipe-Erhardt-type process

Hollow Forged Seamless Pipe Erhardt Type Process. The Erhardt process (Fig. A5.7), developed by Heinrich Erhardt in Germany in 1891, consists of heating a square ingot to forging temperature, placing it into a circularly hollow die, and incompletely piercing it with a vertical piercing mandrel such that a cup shape is obtained. As a result of the piercing at forging temperature, the square ingot becomes the (circular) shape of the die. After reheating, the cup-shaped shell is mounted on a mandrel and pushed through a series of dies to the desired diameter and wall thickness, after which the cupped end is removed and the inside and outside pipe diameters are machined. This process is used for large-diameter and heavy-wall seamless pipe for boiler headers and main steam line piping. It can be applied to produce low and medium carbon steel pipe (ASTM A53, A106, A161, A179, A192, A210), stainless steel pipe (TP329, TP304, TP304L, TP321, TP347, TP316), and high nickel alloys (A333, A334).

Cold and Hot Finishing of Seamless Pipe and Tube. Pipe that has been produced by the Mannesmann plug-mill, mandrel mill, Ugine Sejournet, or Erhardt forging process can be used as hot finished seamless steel pipe or tube if the application does not require further finishing. If further finishing is required, the pipe or tube may be further reduced by a cold reduction process (Fig. A5.8). If the cold reduction processes are used, the reduced tube must be heat-treated in a furnace such as a bright annealing furnace or in a continuous barrel furnace. Subsequent to the heat treatment of the cold finished pipe, the pipe must pass through a straightening process which corrects any non straight sections caused in the pipe by the heat treatment of cold reduced pipe. The straighteners are either a series of rolls through which the pipes pass cold or a device which bends the pipe at discreet locations along the pipe. The resulting product is called cold finished seamless pipe or tube.

FIGURE A5.8 Cold and hot finishing of seamless pipe and tube.

In applications of tube to fossil fuel boilers, cold finishing is sometimes specified. Cold finishing improves the surface finish and dimensional accuracy. Some boiler manufacturers, however, consider the hot finished tube surface satisfactory and specify it as such because of its reduced cost.