The seamless steel pipe manufacturing process starts with a solid, round steel billet. This billet is then heated to great temperatures and stretched and pulled over a form until it takes the shape of a hollow tube. As steel pipe suppliers will tell you, there are three great advantages to making a pipe in this way.

Increased Pressure Ratings

The greatest advantage of seamless steel pipes is their increased ability to withstand pressure. The weakest point in a welded steel pipe is the welded seam. But because a seamless steel pipe has not been welded, it doesn’t have that seam, making it equally strong around the entire circumference of the pipe.

It is also much easier to determine pressure calculations without being required to take weld quality into consideration.

Although seamless pipe can sometimes be more expensive than welded pipe, this increased ability to withstand pressure allows you to use pipes that are thinner and lighter, which can help cut down on expenses.

Uniformity of Shape

Because welded seam pipe is wrapped around another form before it is welded, and because welding adds heat, stress and other extraneous variables to the forming process, it can never be as round as seamless steel pipe.

Seamless steel pipe is a continuous extrusion of the alloy, meaning that it will have a round cross section that you can count on, which is helpful when you’re installing pipes or adding fittings.

Strength Under Loads

Seamless steel pipe can sometimes be more expensive than other forms of steel pipe, but it’s also more reliable.

This is because it has greater strength under loading. Empty pipe must always support its own weight, but when a pipe is filled with material–or under load–it must also support that weight as well. Pipe failures and leaks in welded pipes usually occur at the welded seam. But because seamless pipe doesn’t have that seam, it isn’t subject to those failures.

These benefits make seamless steel pipes the preferred material in an array of commercial pipe applications, including ship building, pipelines, oil rigs, oil field equipment, pressure vessels, machinery parts and offshore rigs. An additional benefit of seamless pipes is that they perform well in harsh conditions, which means that they can be used in extremely cold or hot environments.