Operating a tube mill comes with a lot of challenges. The operators and the managers both need to know how this problems and challenges come to play and how to solve the problems for the tube mill’s manufacturing process or what should be done to prevent it from happening again. If these problems are not addressed properly, aluminium fabrication, steel fabrication, or stainless steel fabrication processes won’t have precise tubes and pipes to work with.

Among all the problems and challenges I’m refereeing to, strip rolling and tube marking in the breakdown section are the two most common obstacles between the operators and their expected precise and productive tube mill production.

Strip Rolling

Inside the breakdown section, there can a lot happening that you don’t know. To give you a basic understanding of how the problem came to be, you can check for the following issues.

a)       Misaligned or Uncentered strips entering the tube mill

b)      Loose entrance table

c)       Misaligned or Unparallel breakdown stand

d)      Loose side box

e)      Extreme wearing on the rolls

f)        Incompatible design for the heavier than usual or lighter than usual gauges

g)       Misaligned or Improper setting of side rolls

h)      Camber from slits

i)        No tie bars on side rolls’ passes

These are the main reasons for strip rolling in the Tube Mill’s breakdown section and among them, misaligned components are the most common ones. The operators must know that they can’t get the expected results if the machine setup is not done correctly because like any manufacturing process or laser cutting, metal bending, plasma cutting, metal rolling, and other metal fabrication processes, misalignment can cause issues to the overall process and even halt the production.

Tube Marking

Tube marking is another common phenomenon that tube mills operators see every now and then, especially when the machines are not calibrated properly. Apart from that, there are other accidents or malfunctions that can happen inside the breakdown section like:

a)       Inappropriate strip width

b)      Incorrect adjustment to the driven rolls to the gauge

c)       Misaligned or Uncentered strips entering the tube mill

d)      Unendangered driven rolls with the side rolls

e)      Loose Driven stand

f)        Misaligned or Unparallel driven rolls

g)       Loose side rolls

h)      Extreme wearing on the rolls

i)        Incompatible design for the heavier than usual or lighter than usual gauges

j)        Misaligned or Improper setting of side rolls

k)       Camber from slits

l)        Misaligned or Improper setting of driven rolls to the metal line

m)    Uncoordinated drive RPM

Like strip rolling, misaligned components are the most annoying things that cause tube marking.

Also, tube marking can occur in the weld box or fin section and the primary reasons for that are:

a)       Unnecessarily wide strip

b)      Tight adjustment of the drive rolls

c)       Misaligned or Unparallel driven rolls

d)      Loose driven stand

e)      Uncoordinated Drive RPM

f)        Loose side roll box

g)       Worn out fin blade

h)      Wide side roll settings

i)        Misaligned or Uncentered slide rolls with the driven rolls

j)        Incorrect forming

k)       Tight weld rolls settings

l)        Extreme wearing on the rolls

m)    Improper tube size between the slide roll and driven roll pass

So these are the main reasons for Strip Rolling and Tube marking in breakdown section which directly affects the materials (tubes/pipes) – soon to be used in metal fabrication shops.