TPT March 2018

Heat treatment line and hot tube straightener commissioned

7aB03/ B15

line allows small batches and a large number of different product groups to be efficiently processed. The use of eco- friendly, low-NOx recuperator burners in the furnaces saves up to five per cent of fuel compared to conventional burners. The water treatment plant cools and filters up to 1,800m 3 of water per hour, reducing fresh water requirements to less than three per cent. SMS group received the final acceptance certificate after only two months of intensive testing in close cooperation with the engineers at voestalpine Tubulars. During these tests, all performance parameters (specific fuel consumption, temperature uniformity, production rate and final tube quality) were successfully reached. SMS group GmbH – Germany Email: communications@sms-group.com Website: www.sms-group.com

VOESTALPINE Tubulars, Austria, has commissioned a new heat treatment line and a hot tube straightening machine supplied by SMS group. The line is designed for seamless tubes with outside diameters between 60.3 and 273mm. It can process steel grades with alloying contents of up to approximately 20 per cent, and has a maximum capacity of 25 tons per hour. The heat treatment line supplied by SMS group consists of a walking beam type austenitising furnace, an SMS quenching head, a cooling table for normalising, a tempering furnace also of walking beam design, a cooling bed and two sawing stations for sample cutting. This equipment allows voestalpine Tubulars to perform various heat treatments, such as quenching, tempering and normalising, in a single line. The heat treatment line can currently handle tubes with wall thicknesses of

up to 25mm, but has been designed to allow later expansion with an additional quenching unit, in order to process tubes with wall thicknesses greater than 30mm. The cross-roll straightener with ten individually controlled rolls has a sturdy design and allows rapid roll changing for minimum standstill times. The line is controlled fully automatically. The high product flexibility of the With the fully automatic SMS quenching head the tubes can be cooled homogeneously and at high rates

159

www.read-tpt.com

MARCH 2018