TPT March 2013

Furnaces and

heat treatment

Plasma annealing and cleaning for precision tubes

The tube manufacturers who adopted plasma annealing have recognised the value from low cost of ownership in comparison to traditional tube or muffle furnace. The benefits of plasma treatment include more than 50 per cent lower energy use, ten times lower purging gas consumption, the saving from dry, chemical-free degreasing and surface cleaning. Increased annealing speed by the factor of five of more results in fewer take ups and payoffs and lower cost of maintenance. Manufacturers of coated tubular products may find plasma surface preparation prior to coating or metallic plating also an area of potential interest. Since the introduction of plasma heat and surface treatment process in the wire industry in 2003 Plasmait continuously improved the process and widened the application scope to include annealing and surface treatment of tubes and flat products. With more than 52 deployments of plasma treatment lines worldwide Plasmait established itself as a trusted supplier to the wire and tube industry.

cleaning on tubes of various materials including copper, copper alloy, stainless steel and nickel alloy tubes. PlasmaANNEALER is equipped with vacuum system to ensure controlled atmosphere and exceptionally low usage of purging gas. The plasma- heating zone is complemented with appropriate length dwell zone to allow for annealing of materials like stainless steel and nickel, that require extended time at temperature to achieve complete annealing. According to Plasmait’s R&D director, Peter Ziger, the dedicated tube trial facility is now available to all tube manufacturers who strive to improve the quality of their tubular products. Plasma treatment will benefit applications with demanding surface

PLASMAIT GmbH, a supplier of plasma heat and surface treatment lines for wire, tube and strip production, has introduced a new PlasmaANNEALER for continuous annealing and cleaning of precision tubes. PlasmaANNEALER has been designed for continuous heat treatment, degreasing and oxide removal of precision and thin wall tubes. PlasmaANNEALER can be used on a wide range of ferrous and non-ferrous materials with OD range between 0.1mm to 5mm. Thin-walled tubes with diameter up to 10mm can also be annealed with the new plasma process. So far Plasmait demonstrated successful annealing and surface

quality requirements or challenging annealing requirements. Such applications are usually found in sectors such as medical, precision mechanical, electronics, aerospace and energy sectors.

Plasmait GmbH – Germany Fax: +44 7810 810 656 Email: info@plasmait.com Website: www.plasmait.com

The PlasmaANNEALER

Furnace rollers from the Ukraine RESEARCH & Production Corporation Trubostal Ltd was created in 1989, and currently numbers more than 1,000 employees and two factories. Total working area is 46,000m 2 . The company’s plant for production of centrifugally cast tubes and items is described as the largest in Europe in regard to that type of product. heat-treated, as well as articles of the centrifugally cast tubes (furnace rollers, bandages for crushers, metal moulds for centrifugal casting, radiant tubes, muffles, casings of hydraulic cylinders, valves, motors, crane rope drums, rings, slitters, press-moulds, flanges, pillars of manipulators, wear-resistant tubes of pulp-ducts, bushings for slush pumps, construction columns, piles, etc). Metal-removal machine tools, certified in compliance with EN ISO 9001:2008. The company’s plant can produce fittings of the diameter range 24 to 1,420mm: elbows, bends, tees, pipe crosses, reducers of carbon- and alloyed steels. Some of these products are supplied to thermal power stations and atomic power stations. Thanks to the possibility of independent manufacture of moulding tools, new standard sizes of fitting are constantly mastered.

Production capacity of liquid metal is greater than 20,000 tons per year: seamless centrifugally cast tubes of OD range from 100 to 1,625mm, wall thickness from 7 to 250mm, length up to 6,250mm, in more than 200 grades of steel, alloys, cast iron, bi- metallic combinations, as machined,

facilities for heat treatment and NDT allow the company to produce centrifugally cast tubes and articles at the level of worldwide standards. About 60% of products are exported. The quality management system has been

R&PC Trubostal Ltd – Ukraine Fax: +380 5662 21190 Email: trubostal@trubostal.com.ua Website: www.trubostal.com.ua

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M arch 2013