Steel pipes are ubiquitous and can be found underground and within residential walls, laboratories, and commercial and industrial structures. The pipes transport fluids including water, natural gas, waste and air. Three manufacturing methods exist to produce steel pipes. Seamless steel pipes are produced using an extrusion mold. Welded steel pipes are produced by rolling a sheet of steel into a tube and welding the seam.

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. Here we will introduce the strength under loads of seamless steel pipe.

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.