TPT March 2020

T E CHNOLOG Y

Robots introduced for roll change of pipe mills

traditional structure making the process simple and the product quality excellent. There are many flexible forming pipe mills, which have a complex structure, short roll life, high risk of failure and shutdown, and a large number of rolls still need to be replaced manually. Raft or boat raft pipe mills need specialists to change rollers online, which saves time, but not manpower. While FD Machinery already has equipment installed at major tube and pipe manufacturers in China, in recent

TUBE and pipe mill manufacturer FD Machinery is now using robots to change rollers so that there is no dangerous or heavy manual work involved in production. This also means that the downtime of size changing is reduced. According to FD machinery, using robots retains the function of manual rapid roll change, which means that users do not have to worry that the production line will be shut down due to robot failure. Size change is done by changing the rolls and the pipe mill retains the

FD Machinery now uses robots to change rollers

years its focus has been on exporting equipment. FD Machinery has sold and exported equipment to the US, Asia, Europe, Japan, the Middle East, Mexico and Africa.

FD Machinery www.fdmachinery.com

Unconventional systems for seamless tube bright annealing from Saet Emmedi

means of a closed loop demineralised water-cooling system, mounted on an independent structure. To achieve brightness and hardness required by the annealing process, non-recycled pure hydrogen gas at a low rate is used for a perfect cleaning of tube surface in safety condition. The outgoing hydrogen is burned to prevent gas dispersion in the environment.

Induction heating applied to this process reduces start-up times to a minimum and permits a power density higher than conventional furnaces, with a consequent reduction in the length of the heating section. Both the heating inductor and the cooling section are assembled on a specific support frame, able to traverse on rails, perpendicularly to the production line, in order to clear the mill area when heat treatment is not required. The complete system (coil and cooling tunnel) is cooled by

SAET EMMEDI, a company that devel- ops and produces cutting-edge solutions in induction heating, celebrated a successful 2019 with the completion of two highly customised in-line bright annealing systems. It also concluded the year successfully by signing an additional important contract. The first units, which were installed in the USA, featured improved production flexibility as requested by the customer. At the end of 2019 Emmedi was also awarded the additional new contract

Saet Emmedi www.saetemmedi.com

from one of the major stainless- steel manufacturers operating worldwide. A spokesperson for Emmedi said: “Thanks to the reputation gained with traditional and con- solidated bright annealing solu- tions, we have been entrusted with the development of a high- ly customised system that will innovate a technical approach to stainless steel seamless tubes production.”

Saet Emmedi has developed a highly customised solution for the customer

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MARCH 2020