Seamless Tube Plant
With the principle of “the best products originate from the beginning”, SMC never ignore the melting and casting. Precise control is maintained over metal composition and billet quality is assured by skilled cast house and on-site laboratory. The major hydraulic extrusion press converts the solid copper billets into long tubular "shells" by forcing the preheated billet through a die and over a piercing mandrel. Crane Copper Tube production and engineering excellence has resulted in innovative extrusion techniques which produce shells of superior dimensional and compositional uniformity enabling subsequent cold drawing to finished dimensions with precise tolerances. Cold drawing machines economically produce large quantities of thin-walled tube whilst larger diameter and thick-walled tubes are rapidly produced on multi-die "draw benches". The cold-drawn tubing is conveyed to "finishing lines" which manipulate and cut the tube to produce a product of the required form and length. All tube is inspected for defects using on-line eddy current analysis. The temper of some tube is modified using annealing ovens which maintain strict control over temperature and furnace atmosphere, which can avoid the discolouration. |
