As many people know, pipeline transport surpasses all other transport systems combined in terms of total cargo turnover. Millions of tons of water, oil and natural gas are pumped annually from their intake points to end consumers, thereby ensuring a continuous flow of the most popular natural products in industry and everyday life. For the efficient and uninterrupted operation of all transport systems, from main to terminal, a careful selection of source materials for the installation of each individual utility line is required. In great demand for these purposes is round hot rolled steel pipe, which is one of the varieties of ferrous rolled metal products produced in large quantities by metallurgical enterprises.
Among its most significant advantages, the following should be mentioned:
- A solid-drawn wall, unlike its analogues with welded seams, has a much higher tensile strength in any direction. For example, electric-welded pipes in the seam area diverge in the tangential direction with much less mechanical force, so they are not capable of operating at the same pressures as seamless ones. Due to this, the latter provide the pipelines constructed from them with increased productivity, which entails an increase in the efficiency of the transport system. For these reasons, it becomes economically more feasible to use a more expensive material, since the initial costs of its purchase at the start of the project are more than recouped in the process of many years of operation, both due to a reduction in energy costs to ensure its uninterrupted operation and to eliminate the consequences of accidents that periodically occur when using less reliable samples.
- Seamless pipes also bend easily without breaking even at ninety-degree angles, so they are suitable for installing complex-configuration wiring inside buildings with numerous turns in corners adjacent to perpendicular walls and ceilings.
- Hot deformation during production occurs with lower loads on machine tools, and in the thickness of the metal the crystal lattice retains greater isotropy than in cold rolling.
To protect against the effects of moisture, which leads to the occurrence of iron-destroying corrosion, as well as for energy saving purposes, it has now become very widely used for laying main sections of heating systems in the ground insulated steel pipe, which differs from hot-rolled steel only by the presence of a protective casing made of mineral or polymer compounds rigidly attached to them around the outer surface of the walls. For ease of connection using electric arc welding, there are small indentations of the insulator from the edge, which allows for unimpeded manipulation of the electrode when forming a weld.
Analogues of round hot rolled steel pipes for special purposes
In addition to transport pipelines, there is a lot of related equipment for which it is more appropriate to use less universal analogs, specially designed for narrow tasks, as a source material instead of round hot-rolled steel pipes. There are many varieties of them, so for the sake of example we will briefly mention only two.
Boiler tube made of corrosion-resistant heat-resistant steel
As the name suggests, boiler tube made of corrosion-resistant heat-resistant steel is used to manufacture heat exchangers that operate in conditions of very high temperatures and exposure to aggressive components of flue gases. A solid fuel or gas hot water boiler has a fairly compact design and high cost, so it is impossible to repair it or replace it with a new one without significant capital investments. It is for this reason that reasonable engineers take care of its reliability and durability already at the development stage, carefully selecting materials for each part.
Flat oval steel tube for safe metal constructions
For sports and playgrounds, as well as other places where people gather, such as public transport stops, public utilities that care about the health of citizens strive to select types of rolled metal that are safe for contact with the human body. Their wishes are fully satisfied by flat oval steel pipe, which does not have sharp corners, is inexpensive and, due to the small thickness of the walls, is economically used in terms of weight for a single structure, which reduces the burden on the budget.