We provide seamless mechanical steel tubing products designed to thrive in demanding, high-stress applications. You find these products in automotive components where performance depends on reliability and quality. In addition, you find your seamless mechanical steel tubing for industrial applications - ranging from bearings to cylinders and gears - where toughness is essential for functionality. Oil and gas exploration is another common use for our seamless mechanical tubing, where durability and component life below the Earth's surface is paramount.
We produce seamless mechanical steel tubing, in the hot-rolled condition, close to your finished part size, which makes it very competitive compared to other forging or machining processes. You may also purchase tubes in sizes recommended to clean up at finished part dimensions, which allows for optimum material utilization. Our size range ranks among industry leaders, from 3.0" to 13" (76 mm – 330 mm) with outer diameter-to-wall ratio from 4:1 to 14:1.
We focus on continually improving the quality of our processes. With recent investments in an intermediate finishing line, water-blast descaling process, and continuous induction thermal treat facility, we offer quality, customized solutions. Our approach to manufacturing integrates our melting, rolling, piercing and finishing operations, helping to ensure quality control from start to finish. Our seamless mechanical tubing processes include piercing (rotary forging), thermal treatment, and testing and finishing.
To learn more about our seamless mechanical tubing, read our product specification sheet or check out the “tubing general tolerances – seamless mechanical tubing” section of the Practical Data for Metallurgists handbook.
Behind the Scenes Video
PIERCING (ROTARY FORGING)
Piercing a seamless steel tube is a forging operation in which the metal is worked from the inside as well as the outside. We convert a solid bar into a hollow shell by displacing material over a mandrel during rotary rolling. This process results in a refined grain structure and uniform grain flow. Subsequent seamless tube processes include elongating to reach the desired wall thickness, rolling to achieve the outside diameter, and rotary sizing to round the tube diameter to your final required dimensions. We monitor these operations to produce a tube with uniform properties from the surface through wall and from one end to the other.
THERMAL TREATMENT
We house multiple thermal treatment facilities that tailor solutions to meet a wide range of customer needs. We also operate two Induction Thermal Treatment Facilities (ITTF), a Continuous Thermal Treatment Facility (CTTF), a Quench Temper Facility (QTF), a Gambrinus Thermal Treat Facility (GTTF) and our newest Advanced-Quench-and-Temper Facility (AQTF) in Canton, Ohio. At these facilities, we provide a diverse range of processing options to meet demanding strength and hardness requirements – regardless of the order size. We continue to develop these facilities, advance our capabilities and broaden our sophistication in thermal treatment offerings so you can rely on TimkenSteel for innovative product designs and proven quality.
TESTING AND FINISHING
Our $50 million intermediate finishing line (IFL) in Canton incorporates the latest technologies and employs lean processes. This significantly eliminates product touches and material movements, helping improve your lead times. Our state-of-the-art finishing processes through the IFL include straightening, water blast scale removal, cutting, ultrasonic testing, eddy current testing, and dimensional gauging. IFL testing capabilities include hardness, strength, and toughness and cleanness testing in order to meet your specifications.
The minimum order quantity for standard seamless mechanical steel tube products is 10,000 pounds. For tube sizes that weigh more than 100 pounds per foot, the minimum is 20,000 pounds.
These minimums apply to standard grades. Customers must order non-standard grades in a heat lot. We can provide a heat of non-standard grade steel in multiple sizes. We can also determine the size of the steel tubing product available per heat through our inquiry process.
TimkenSteel produces steel seamless mechanical tubing to a range of quality levels, including UltraPremium™, Parapremium™, aircraft, bearing, electric furnace and commercial. We typically produce our steels to AISI standards, but we also melt non-standard steels that we manufacture to customer specifications.
Much of our special quality production goes into aircraft, anti-friction bearings, gun quality steel, missiles and steel with high transverse mechanical properties.
We continue to develop our thermal treatment capabilities and broaden our seamless mechanical tubing offerings so you can rely on us for innovative product designs and proven performance. Visit the steel glossary page to learn more about common thermal treatment terms.