Traditional hydraulic lines use single flared ends, typically manufactured to SAE-J525 or ASTM-A513-T5 standards, which are difficult to obtain domestically. OEMs looking for domestic suppliers can replace pipe manufactured to SAE-J356A specification and sealed with O-ring face seals as shown. A real production line.
Editor’s Note: This article is the first in a two-part series on the market and manufacturing of liquid transfer lines for high pressure applications. The first part discusses the status of domestic and foreign supply bases for conventional products. The second section discusses the details of less traditional products targeted at this market.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unexpected shifts in many industries, including steel pipe supply chains and pipe manufacturing processes. From the end of 2019 to the present, the steel pipe market has undergone major changes in both production and logistics operations. A long overdue question was in the center of attention.
Now the workforce is more important than ever. The pandemic is a human crisis and the importance of health has shifted the balance between work, personal life and leisure for most, if not all. The number of skilled workers has declined due to retirement, the inability of some workers to return to their old job or find a new job in the same industry, and many other factors. In the early days of the epidemic, labor shortages were mostly concentrated in industries that relied on front-line jobs, such as medical care and retail, while production staff were on vacation or their work hours were significantly reduced. Manufacturers are currently having trouble recruiting and retaining staff, including experienced pipe plant operators. Pipe making is primarily a blue-collar job requiring hard work in an uncontrolled climate. Wear additional personal protective equipment (such as masks) to mitigate infection and follow additional rules such as maintaining a 6-foot distance. Linear distance from others, adding stress to an already stressful job.
The availability of steel and the cost of steel raw materials have also changed during the pandemic. Steel is the most expensive component for most pipes. Typically, steel accounts for 50% of the cost per linear foot of pipeline. As of the fourth quarter of 2020, the three-year average price of domestic cold rolled steel in the US was about $800 per ton. Prices are going through the roof and are $2,200 per ton by the end of 2021.
Only these two factors will change during the pandemic, how will the players in the pipe market react? What impact do these changes have on the pipe supply chain, and what good advice is there for the industry in this crisis?
Years ago, an experienced pipe mill manager summed up his company’s role in the industry: “Here we do two things: we make pipes and we sell them.” many blur the company’s core values or a temporary crisis (or all of these happen at the same time, which is often the case).
It is important to gain and maintain control by focusing on what really matters: the factors that affect the production and sale of quality pipes. If the company’s efforts are not focused on these two activities, it’s time to get back to basics.
As the pandemic spreads, demand for pipes in some industries has dropped to near zero. Car factories and companies in other industries that were considered minor were idle. There was a time when many in the industry did not manufacture or sell pipes. The pipe market continues to exist for only a few significant enterprises.
Luckily, people are minding their own business. Some people buy extra freezers for food storage. Shortly thereafter, the real estate market began to pick up and people tended to buy a few or many new appliances when buying a home, so both trends supported demand for smaller diameter pipes. The farm equipment industry is starting to revive, with more and more owners wanting small tractors or lawn mowers with zero steering. The automotive market then resumed, albeit at a slower pace due to chip shortages and other factors.
Rice. 1. SAE-J525 and ASTM-A519 standards are established as regular replacements for SAE-J524 and ASTM-A513T5. The main difference is that SAE-J525 and ASTM-A513T5 are welded instead of seamless. Purchasing difficulties such as a six month lead time have created opportunities for two other tubular products, SAE-J356 (supplied as a straight tube) and SAE-J356A (supplied as a coil), which meet many of the same requirements as the others. products.
The market has changed, but the leadership remains the same. There is nothing more important than focusing on the production and sale of pipes according to market demand.
The make-or-buy question arises when a manufacturing operation faces higher labor costs and fixed or reduced internal resources.
Production immediately after welding of pipe products requires significant resources. Depending on the volume and production of the steel mill, it is sometimes economical to cut wide strips internally. However, internal threading can be burdensome given the labor requirements, the capital requirements for tools, and the cost of broadband inventory.
On the one hand, cutting 2,000 tons per month and stocking 5,000 tons of steel takes a lot of money. On the other hand, buying cut-to-width steel on a just-in-time basis requires little cash. In fact, given that the pipe manufacturer can negotiate the terms of the loan with the cutter, he can actually defer cash costs. Each pipe mill is unique in this regard, but it is safe to say that almost every pipe manufacturer has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of skilled workforce availability, steel costs and cash flows.
The same goes for pipe production itself, depending on the circumstances. Companies with branched value chains can opt out of the regulatory business. Instead of making tubing, then bending, coating, and making knots and assemblies, buy tubing and focus on other activities.
Many companies that manufacture hydraulic components or automotive fluid pipe bundles have their own pipe mills. Some of these plants are now liabilities rather than assets. Consumers in the pandemic era tend to drive less and car sales forecasts are far from pre-pandemic levels. The automotive market is associated with negative words such as shutdowns, deep recessions and scarcity. For automakers and their suppliers, there is no reason to expect that the supply situation will change for the better in the near future. Notably, an increasing number of electric vehicles in this market have fewer steel tubing drivetrain components.
Gripping tube mills are often made to order. This is an advantage in terms of their intended purpose – making pipes for specific applications – but a disadvantage in terms of economies of scale. For example, consider a pipe mill designed to produce 10 mm OD products for a known automotive product. The program guarantees settings based on volume. Later, a much smaller procedure was added for another tube with the same outside diameter. Time passed, the original program expired, and the company didn’t have enough volume to justify a second program. Installation and other costs are too high to justify. In this case, if the company can find a capable supplier, it should try to outsource the project.
Of course, the calculations don’t stop at the cutoff point. Finishing steps such as coating, cutting to length, and packaging greatly add to the cost. It is often said that the biggest hidden cost in tube production is handling. Moving the pipes from the rolling mill to the warehouse where they are picked up from the warehouse and loaded onto a fine slitting stand and then the pipes are laid in layers to feed the pipes into the cutter one at a time – all of this All steps require labor This labor cost may not get the accountant’s attention, but it manifests itself in the form of additional forklift operators or additional staff in the delivery department.
Rice. 2. The chemical composition of SAE-J525 and SAE-J356A is almost identical, which helps the latter to replace the former.
Hydraulic pipes have been around for thousands of years. Over 4,000 years ago, the Egyptians forged copper wire. Bamboo pipes were used in China during the Xia Dynasty around 2000 BC. Later Roman plumbing systems were built using lead pipes, a by-product of the silver smelting process.
seamless. Modern seamless steel pipes made their debut in North America in 1890. From 1890 to the present, the raw material for this process is a solid round billet. Innovations in the continuous casting of billets in the 1950s led to the transformation of seamless tubes from steel ingots into the cheap steel raw material of the time – cast billets. Hydraulic pipes, both past and present, are made from seamless, cold-drawn voids. It is classified for the North American market as SAE-J524 by the Society of Automotive Engineers and ASTM-A519 by the American Society for Testing and Materials.
The production of seamless hydraulic pipes is usually a very labor intensive process, especially for small diameter pipes. It requires a lot of energy and requires a lot of space.
welding. In the 1970s the market changed. After dominating the steel pipe market for nearly 100 years, the seamless pipe market has declined. It was packed with welded pipes, which proved to be suitable for many mechanical applications in the construction and automotive markets. It even occupies territory in the former Mecca – the world of oil and gas pipelines.
Two innovations contributed to this change in the market. One involves continuous casting of slabs, which allows steel mills to efficiently mass-produce high quality flat strip. Another factor making HF resistance welding a viable process for the pipeline industry. The result is a new product: a welded pipe with the same characteristics as seamless, but at a lower cost than similar seamless products. This pipe is still in production today and is classified as SAE-J525 or ASTM-A513-T5 in the North American market. Since the tube is drawn and annealed, it is a resource intensive product. These processes are not as labor and capital intensive as seamless processes, but the costs associated with them are still high.
From the 1990s to the present, most of the hydraulic pipes consumed in the domestic market, whether seamless drawn (SAE-J524) or welded drawn (SAE-J525), are imported. This is likely the result of large differences in the cost of labor and steel raw materials between the US and exporting countries. Over the past 30-40 years, these products have been available from domestic manufacturers, but they have never been able to establish themselves as a dominant player in this market. Favorable cost of imported products is a serious obstacle.
current market. The consumption of seamless, drawn and annealed product J524 has gradually decreased over the years. It is still available and has a place in the hydraulic line market, but OEMs tend to choose J525 if welded, drawn and annealed J525 is readily available.
The pandemic hit and the market changed again. The global supply of labor, steel and logistics is falling at about the same rate as the decline in car demand mentioned above. The same applies to the supply of imported J525 hydraulic oil pipes. Given these developments, the domestic market appears to be poised for another market shift. Is it ready to produce another product that is less labor intensive than welding, drawing and annealing pipes? One exists, although it is not commonly used. This is SAE-J356A, which meets the requirements of many hydraulic systems (see fig. 1).
The specifications published by the SAE tend to be short and simple, as each specification defines only one tubing manufacturing process. The downside is that the J525 and J356A are pretty much the same in terms of size, mechanical properties, and other information, so the specs can be confusing. In addition, the J356A spiral product for small diameter hydraulic lines is a variant of J356, and the straight pipe is mainly used for the production of large diameter hydraulic pipes.
Figure 3. Although welded and cold drawn pipes are considered by many to be superior to welded and cold rolled pipes, the mechanical properties of the two tubular products are comparable. NOTE. Imperial values to PSI are soft converted from specifications which are metric values to MPa.
Some engineers consider the J525 to be excellent for high pressure hydraulic applications such as heavy equipment. J356A is less well known but also applies to high pressure fluid bearings. Sometimes the finishing requirements differ: J525 does not have an ID bead, while J356A is reflow driven and has a smaller ID bead.
The raw material has similar properties (see Fig. 2). Small differences in chemical composition correlate with desired mechanical properties. In order to achieve certain mechanical properties such as tensile strength or ultimate tensile strength (UTS), the chemical composition or heat treatment of the steel is limited to obtain specific results.
These types of pipes share a similar set of general mechanical properties, making them interchangeable in many applications (see Figure 3). In other words, if one is missing, the other is likely to suffice. No one needs to reinvent the wheel, the industry already has a solid, balanced set of wheels.
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Post time: Jan-05-2023