Plasmait delivers high-speed annealing lines for stainless steel tubes

Plasmait GmbH from Austria has delivered an annealing line for precision stainless steel and nickel alloy tubes with OD range from 0.024inch – 0.5 inch (0.6mm – 12mm). The order reaffirmed continued success of Plasmait in various stainless steel heat and surface treatment applications.

The line has been built for a renowned producer of small size precision tubing whose prime objective was the quality of recrystallization. Clean, bright and scratch-free finish of the tube surface was also important. The line includes double takeup with spooler and coiler to cater packing of large and small size products. Plasmait’s solution offered the client a modern, computer controlled facility designed for ease of use and minimal environmental impact.

For large size tubes Plasmait now offers annealing lines with outputs of up to 500 lb/h per line for austenitic and more for martensitic stainless steels. The new facility occupies a fraction of the space that would be required by a conventional multiline annealing furnace of the same capacity. A single plasma line can substitute around 20 traditional lines. The annealing line features high energy conversion efficiency, low purging gas consumption, quick string-in, and computer based quality control. PlasmaANNEALER can cold start production in few minutes and can be stopped imminently. This avoids lengthy heating-up and cooling-down times and associated energy costs that are symptomatic for a conventional furnace. Ion sputtering on the material surface results in dry surface degreasing and surface oxide removal, which have proved beneficial to applications with demanding surface requirements in sectors such as medical, heat exchanger, food processing, chemical, aerospace, aviation automotive to mention a few.

Plasmait also sold a few annealers for producers of fine medical tubes with sizes down to 0.0078inch (0.2mm) OD. The annealing speeds on small size tubes are high enough to allow annealing being performed in-line with drawing. Tube producers now require fewer takeups and payoff which reduces the total cost of equipment. Further saving are obtained through the cost labour, maintenance, purging gas usage, power usage and power connection required for the annealer. PlasmaANNEALER can cold start production in a few minutes and can be stopped immediately. This avoids long heating-up and cooling-down times and associated energy costs that are symptomatic for a conventional tube furnace.