Historical views and use cases of welding and seamless steel tubes

ERW and seamless steel tubes now exist as substitutes, mainly due to historical cognition.

Generally, a welded pipe is considered to be inherently weak because it includes a weld. Seamless pipes lack this perceived structural flaw and are considered safer. Although the welded pipe does include seams that are theoretically weaker, the manufacturing techniques and quality assurance schemes have each been improved to the extent that the welded pipe will perform as desired without exceeding its tolerances. While the obvious advantages are obvious, the criticism of seamless piping is that the rolling and drawing processes produce inconsistent wall thicknesses compared to the more precise steel sheet thickness used for welding.304 stainless steel pipes supplier

The industry standards for the development and specification of ERW and seamless steel tubes still reflect these views. For example, many high pressure, high temperature applications in the oil and gas, power generation and pharmaceutical industries require seamless piping. As long as the temperature, pressure and other service variables do not exceed the parameters specified in the applicable standard, welded pipes can be specified in all industries (usually at a lower production cost and widely available).

Historical views and use cases of welding and seamless steel tubes

In structural applications, there is no difference in performance between ERW and seamless steel tubes. Although the two can be specified interchangeably, it is meaningless to specify seamless when a cheaper welded pipe works equally well.

Good procurement practices for welding and seamless steel tubes

An important consideration for specifying pipeline products for a project is that the specifications that the engineer uses to guide the specifications they write (such as those provided by ASTM, ASME, ANSI, and API) only list the pipeline grades without reference to them. The material is also produced by seamless pipe manufacturing. Not all grades can be produced in two ways.

For example, if an engineer specifies a welded pipe with a large outer diameter and wall thickness without knowing that it is impossible to manufacture it, potential confusion may occur. This error may be overlooked until the purchase order is placed, at which point the pipeline supplier will notify the customer that the order cannot be performed in writing.tinplate supplier

In addition, good industry standards can save costs. The A106 and A53 carbon steel pipe standards are a good example. In this article, we will discuss how to use a seamless pipe that conforms to the former, and the pipe that conforms to the latter can be a seamless pipe or a welded pipe. For example, if an engineer must follow the A53 standard for a given project, he or she can still flexibly choose the type to specify based on the specifics of the application.