TPi October 2008

Photo – DNEPR-GL Ltd (page 42)

High-precision tubes Smal l diameter Because tubing for medical uses can require diameter tolerances as close as ±5µm, this is the application that comes first to mind in any review of small-diameter tubes. Minimally invasive surgery, examination by miniaturised optics, and microsurgery employing laser techniques leave no room for error in their tubing delivery systems. More than any other speciality, medicine is responsible for the rule of thumb: the smaller the tube, the greater its technical precision. While the proud history of tubing in laboratory and hospital may justify this assumption, these venues by no means exhaust the uses and industrial importance of small-diameter, high-precision tubes. They are a vital element in a wide array of instruments — converters, sensors, detectors, transformers, amplifiers, lighting, exchangers, condensers, evaporators, impellers — that would, simply, be inconceivable without them. For these, as for a host of other applications, small-diameter, precision-engineered tubes are not only better — they are best. As such, they fully deserve to be the focus of the many excellent products and services featured in this section of Tube Products INTERNATIONAL.

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Tube Products International October 2008

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