As you can understand from the name, manufacturers employ boiler tubes in steam boilers. Line pipe suppliers primarily use seamless tubes in power generation, industrial processing plants, electrical power stations, fossil fuel plants, etc. Boiler tubes can withstand medium to high-pressure tubes. Therefore, manufacturers produce boiler pipes using seamless pipe production methods.
Boiler tube materials and manufacturing:
The initial process is the same for both, whether you choose medium-pressure or high-pressure boiler pipes. The process includes fine drawing, hot rolling, surface brightening, cold drawing, and heat expansion. However, manufacturers take steps to ensure the durability and strength of the pipes. Also, treating the pipes using a specific process makes the boiler pipes heat-resistant.
Heat-treating the pipes ensures that the boiler tube materials gain hardness and toughness. Also, heating and cooling seamless tubes and pipes in a controlled environment makes them wear-resistant and corrosion-proof. Standard heat treatment processes are quenching, tempering, and annealing.
Quenching allows pipe fabricators to increase the hardness of the pipes. Increased hardness means that boiler pipes will not break apart when exposed to continuous stress and high temperatures.
The process starts by heating the materials evenly using a hearth furnace. Then, manufacturers use an immersing fluid to immerse the tubes to reduce their temperature instantly. While some pipe fabricators use water as a quenching medium, some use oil, and some manufacturers use brine. Which quenching material they use depends on the boiler tube materials. You can either air-cool the pipes or keep them in a freezing zone based on which quenching materials you use.
Tempering is the most popular process to eliminate the brittleness from carbon steel seamless pipes. However, brittle boiler pipes are not suitable for high-temperature and pressure use. Hence, tempering is extremely important if you do not want the pipes to break or develop cracks.
Annealing releases inner stress from the pipes. Inner stress is quite common in metals. It happens when engineers cool the metals suddenly using quenching instead of air-cooling following quenching. First, manufacturers heat the seamless tubes to a critical temperature. While the metal becomes malleable, it does not start to liquefy. Then, pipe producers cool the pipes slowly using lime or ash. Thus, the stress that may have taken place during the previous cold press method gets removed during annealing.
Remove rust from boiler tubes:
You will not face rust issues if you use superior-quality stainless steel or carbon alloy. However, sometimes, you may need to deal with rust on boiler tubes. You can use different methods of rust removal. The simplest method to remove rust from seamless tubes and pipes is to use a rust removal solvent. Using a dissolvent, you can coat the pipes to make them rust-resistant.
However, solvent only removes oil, dust, and superficial rust marks. But if you want to remove the organic remnants from the pipes, you must use extensive methods.
Power or manual tools can remove superficial rust marks and organic remains. You can also use chemicals such as acids and electrolytic methods to remove rust altogether. The processes allow you to get rid of oxide coatings, rust, and welding slag.
Once you are satisfied with the cleaning, you can spray the seamless pipes with rust preventive sprays.
Get in touch with industry experts:
Although purchasing boiler tubes is not tricky, you must choose boiler tube materials carefully. Purchasing from industry experts means you get superior-quality pipes that are treated to be rust-proof. Also, established line pipe suppliers use heat treatment to ensure that the pipes are strong, pliable, durable, heat, and pressure-resistant. If you want to know more about boiler tubes, get in touch with an experienced seamless tube manufacturer who has been working in the industry.
