Quality control for Tube and Pipe

TORONTO - Feb. 23, 2015 - PRLog -- Manufacturers of tube and pipe deal with challenges on a daily basis to produce quality product.  Often the swing from profit to loss on a work order can happen in a matter of minutes.   It is therefore important for yield and capacity utilization to have real time information about the stability of the process and by default the quality of the finished product.  Yield is driven by heat input, parallel edges and minimal edge misalignment.  These are challenges for tube and pipe producers when the process is inefficient to begin with.

Meanwhile, forming the tube or pipe round these days is more challenging as many mills operate with fewer fin and sizing passes. It’s all the more difficult because over  the years line speeds have increased as explained in the following real world example:

This image shows two control charts of a plot of weld bead width to weld bead height for an ERW /HFI production run.  This plot is important as it is an indicator to setup, temperature, weld pressure and stability.  The lower image is a control chart from Radian, a tube and pipe weld monitoring system.  The client has been using the system for 6 months and one can see how they have tuned their process and as a result a statistical cluster of data points has formed.  This node is their signature for that particular material on that mill.

The image above is a new client.  In comparison, one can see that there is no correlation whatsoever, which is the reason why this client purchased the Radian system.  Their mill has constant start / stops and high scrap rates.  In time, with information and alerts, their control chart will look like the above control chart.

What is Radian:

Radian is a weld and process monitoring system that provides real time visualization and alerts of key parameters that affect stability and can create potentially weak welds.  Weld integrity is of upmost important to tube and pipe producers.   The purpose of Radian is to increase yield, capacity utilization and act as a business intelligence system for clients strategic KPI.

Monitored against a recipe, Radian captures these key parametric datasets:

Weld features:

·         Offset, weld upset, mismatch

·         Weld bead height, weld  bead width

·         Edge angle of one side wall relative to the other at the weld point

·         Roll angle ( deviation from a known reference )

If a client chooses to incorporate the process side, Radian can monitor up to 5 analog inputs.  Examples of these include:

·         Volts

·         Amps

·         Gas

·         Temperature

·         Line Speed

Additionally, Radian can measure and monitor conditions on the input side of the weld such as Vee angle and strip width/thickness.

These parameters are tied to a set of control limits and robust IO for operator alerts, mill integration and historian databases and charting.

To view additional detail and video about this system follow this link:

http://www.invisuale.com/solutions/tube-and-pipe-technolo...