A prerequisite for the economical and future-oriented production of pipes is specific knowledge of the production process. In particular these are the product properties after each of the typically three forming stages. Only through precise, reliable and durable measuring equipment can the ever-increasing demands on the finished product "tube" in terms of uniformity and adherence to low tolerance limits be met while saving energy and raw materials, which require a high degree of process reliability.

Accordingly, the objectives are always the continuous recording and storage of all measured values, production parameters and system events, feedback of the measured values to the pre-control and/or tracking of the control equipment of the rolling units, support of the operator by targeted fault diagnosis and high availability of the measuring system.

Especially in tube production, surface defects are often perpetuated through the complete process chain. Non-stop surface inspection from bloom to finished tube is therefore critical for the quality of the final product.

In the 3D surface inspection system “surcon 3D Tube”, IMS provides tube manufacturers with another high-quality inspection tool. The system enables you to detect surface defects at a much earlier stage of the rolling process than before and to counteract them early and effectively through precise corrective measures.

In particular, the three-dimensional information on the spatial extent of the defects enables far more reliable decisions to be made on the extent to which a surface defect can still be tolerated or whether immediate intervention in the production process is necessary.

In addition, 100% surface inspection ensures that immediate knowledge is available as to whether a detected defect occurs once, recurs several times on a tube or at the same length position from tube to tube – information that is almost impossible to determine reliably by manual inspection.

Advantages:
- Automatic detection and classification of defects and geometric data (including depth and position)
- Detection of defects directly in the rolling process
- Continuous acquisition of all measurement data, product parameters and system events
- Archiving of the data for process optimization
- Substitution of manual inspection possible

At Tube China 2020, IMS will showcase its high-quality tube measuring tools for industry colleagues. Looking forward to your visit at Booth C03, Hall E1, Shanghai New International Expo Center on September 23-26!