Tata Steel unveils new welded product range ahead of Offshore Europe
MUMBAI -- Tata Steel has expanded on its new range of welded linepipe, the company revealed Thursday. The announcement came as Tata prepares to attend Offshore Europe, where it is also celebrating 21 years and one million tonnes of steel in the North Sea.
Earlier this summer, Tata Steel became the first to successfully deliver double submerged arc welded longitudinal (DSAWL) pipe through reeling method in the North Sea. The size range extension has expanded the range further, with the company successfully producing a range of new X65 sizes, with a wall thickness of up to 38.1 mm and a diameter up to 559 mm.
In doing so, the company can now offer traditionally seamless pipe sizes in a welded form, the benefits of which include a decreased lead time in customer orders and improved fit up and weldability, which therefore reduces time and project costs
The new products have already been successfully deployed in the North Sea and in deepwater projects in the Gulf of Mexico.
Welding
“This development marks another huge success for Tata Steel and for our customers. Our team has worked extremely hard to develop this new generation of welded pipe, which will contribute to a lower cost of operation and ownership of assets for our customers,” Martin Connelly, technical manager, Tata Steel, said. “We have invested heavily in research, development and innovation and with the aid of our state-of-the-art finite element (FE) modelling and tooling program this project has come to fruition.”
Tata Steel recently invested in welding control technologies within its 42-in. UOE mill, including weld condition monitoring and digital front-end control of the SAWL welding process. Investment was also made to ensure the ovality of the pipe is as perfect as possible to the expander, with the business reviewing the full forming process including tooling design and a fully validated FE model.
“Tata Steel will continue to develop its understanding of the reaction to reeling of its small diameter/thick wall SAWL pipe and we are planning to conduct a number of full scale simulations over the next few years as part of our research and development program,” Connelly added. “This achievement is the culmination of a number of key technologies deployed by Tata Steel. The result is SAWL capability able to support the market which is seeing increasing demand for the small diameter and thick wall size ranges.”
