Tube and Pipe Fabrication Articles

The tube and pipe fabrication technology area covers sawing (band, circular, and friction) and other cutting processes, such as abrasive, flame, laser, oxyfuel, plasma, and waterjet. It also discusses forming processes, including bending and end forming. Finally, it includes a handful of miscellaneous processes, such as trimming, beveling, finning, grooving, threading, and spinning.

Torch brazing copper tubing is one of the most common–but widely misunderstood–joining processes. It's possible to make sound joints that are just as strong as the copper tube, easier to braze, and less expensive to produce. But first you have to know basic brazing concepts, including joint design, filler metal behavior, and metallurgy.

Tube fabricators all over the country are starting to see some major benefits from new coating technology. Many coatings-both those that are time-proven and new ones just hitting the market-can provide many benefits for many tube fabrication processes, including extended tooling life, better finished parts, and less stress on machinery.

It drives right over nearly every obstacle in its path and splits nearly every eardrum in its vicinity. It's supercharged, oversized, and extraordinary. It stands more than 10 feet tall, develops more than 1,500 horsepower, and can leap over a 727 jet airliner in a single bound.

Hundreds of types of machined end connectors are used to transmit fluid in fabricated tube and hose assemblies. In recent years manufacturers and end users of these connectors have been developing new methods and processes that eliminate machined connectors and the associated joining operation. Eliminating connectors and joining operations can help save both money and time.

Band sawing is the starting point for many tube and pipe fabricating operations, and it can help determine the throughput and profitability of your whole shop. Maximizing the productivity of tube or pipe cutoff requires a coordinated approach to saw blades, sawing machines, and your cutoff process.

The widespread use of autogenous (fusion) orbital gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) in the high-purity semiconductor and biopharmaceutical industries, combined with modern steel refining technology, has made it both desirable and practical to supply type 316L stainless steel with a restricted range of elemental sulfur.

You can successfully roll-form a profile more than one way. In fact, many roll form designers take different approaches to design and development. Also, because the roll forming process has a seeming limitless capacity to produce complex profiles with just as many variables, many roll form designs are one-of-a-kind; therefore, theory can go only so far.

In the power piping industry, turnaround time on a boiler pipe project typically is from 20 to 36 weeks. But J.F. Ahern Co. (JFA), Fond du Lac, Wis., a company ranked as one of the Midwest's top 10 mechanical contractors according to the May 2002 Contractor magazine, isn't typical. Neither were the results JFA achieved when it switched to induction technology for pipe preheating.

Precision abrasive wheel cutting is a small but important niche in the abrasive cutting field. It can be used to cut many types of parts, including metal rods, tubes, extruded shapes, and even wire. It is most useful in operations characterized by small parts, hard-to-cut materials, and tight tolerances.

The level of technology used these days in the tube and pipe fabrication industry varies quite a bit in terms of age. Some of it is a bit antiquated, to put it kindly. Many tube fabrication shops use equipment that is more than 50 years old.

In the 1980s, when CNC machinery evolved, tube fabricators made the transition from manually forming each part to allowing a machine to form the parts unassisted. Now in the age of Windows®-based computers and brushless electric servo drives, these machines can seem like relics. But don't take them to the scrap heap just yet.

Orbital welding's advantages in productivity, quality, consistency, tracability, and skill level required are the driving factors behind its growth. Advances such as oxygen analyzers that prevent the weld cycle from starting until oxygen is properly purged, combined with its ability to generate a written report of each weld, form the basis for orbital welding's improved quality and tracability.

Bending tube and pipe has become increasingly popular throughout the metal fabrication industry. Bending inherently saves money over other fabrication methods, such as the cutting and welding of standard fittings or the use of cast elbows. However, fabricators can reduce costs further by following simple procedures while designing or ordering bends.