Patent Application
20110209802
The present invention generally relates to a method for processing steel tubes and the likes, and more particularly to a steel tube processing method that allows a steel tube to present a possibly maximum inside diameter after being processed for shrinkage and also prevent the processed steel tube from undesired deformation and breaking during the process of tube shrinkage.
Taiwan Patent Publication No. 302309 discloses a square steel tube manufacturing method and a round steel tube manufacturing method, wherein a steel tube is heated in a heating oven and the heated steel tube is subjected to hot forging by a steel tube shaping mill. The so processed steel round tube is then cooled down. Although the round steel tube has been subjected to heating to change the material property of the round steel tube, no lathing has been applied to partially remove the wall thickness of the round tube, whereby when the round steel tube is processed by shrinkage of diameter, as shown in
An objective of the present invention is to provide a method for processing a steel tube and the likes. The method comprises the following steps:
a softening step, in which a tube-to-be-processed is heated so that material property of the tube-to-be-processed is softened;
a cooling step, in which the heated tube-to-be-processed is cooled down to a normal temperature;
a wall cutting step, in which the cooled tube-to-be-processed is subjected to cutting by lathing an end section thereof so as to reduce wall thickness of the tube-to-be-processed at the end section; and
a shrinking step, in which the thickness reduced section of the lathed tube-to-be-processed is subjected to compression to have an inner bore thereof shrunk and thus reduced, whereby occupation of the inner bore of the shrunk tube-to-be-processed by the wall thickness of the tube-to-be-processed is reduced so as to obtain a possible maximum inside diameter of the inner bore and prevent the tube-to-be-processed from undesired deformation and breaking.
The foregoing objectives and summary provide only a brief introduction to the present invention. To fully appreciate these and other objects of the present invention as well as the invention itself, all of which will become apparent to those skilled in the art, the following detailed description of the invention and the claims should be read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. Throughout the specification and drawings identical reference numerals refer to identical or similar parts.
Many other advantages and features of the present invention will become manifest to those versed in the art upon making reference to the detailed description and the accompanying sheets of drawings in which a preferred structural embodiment incorporating the principles of the present invention is shown by way of illustrative example.
The following descriptions are exemplary embodiments only, and are not intended to limit the scope, applicability or configuration of the invention in any way. Rather, the following description provides a convenient illustration for implementing exemplary embodiments of the invention. Various changes to the described embodiments may be made in the function and arrangement of the elements described without departing from the scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims.
Referring to
a softening step (reference numeral 2), in which a tube-to-be-processed is heated so that material property of the tube-to-be-processed is softened, internal stresses are eliminated, and elastic modulus is softened, the heating being carried out at a temperature in the range of 800-1,200° C.;
a cooling step (reference numeral 3), in which the heated tube-to-be-processed is cooled down naturally at a cooling temperature of normal temperature, namely room temperature, so that the tube-to-be-processed 6 restores original mechanical property to facilitate lathing operation;
a wall cutting step (reference numeral 4), in which, as shown in
a shrinking step (reference numeral 5), in which the thickness reduced section of the wall lathed tube-to-be-processed 6 is subjected to compression to have the lathed wall thickness 65 of the tube-to-be-processed 6 inwardly compressed and an inner bore thereof shrunk and thus reduced, so that the tube-to-be-processed 6 shows a possible maximum inside diameter 64 of the inner bore thereof, as shown in
By heating and softening the tube-to-be-processed 6, the material property of the tube-to-be-processed 6 is destructed, internal stresses are eliminated, and the elastic modulus is softened, whereby the tube-to-be-processed 6 is prevented from undesired deformation and breaking caused by forcible compression during the process of shrinkage. By means of partially lathing the wall thickness of the tube-to-be-processed 6 to thin the lathed wall thickness 65, the tube-to-be-processed 6 can present a possible maximum inside diameter 64 after the shrinkage operation, as shown in
While certain novel features of this invention have been shown and described and are pointed out in the annexed claim, it is not intended to be limited to the details above, since it will be understood that various omissions, modifications, substitutions and changes in the forms and details of the device illustrated and in its operation can be made by those skilled in the art without departing in any way from the spirit of the present invention.
