New Market Demands for Full Length Pipe Expander

Over the years Fontijne Grotnes has developed into a specialist in the design and manufacturing of Full Length Pipe Expanders for the pipe industry. The Expander guarantees a constant, reproducible process regarding diameter, straightness and mechanical properties.

Fontijne Grotnes is constantly improving the Full Length Pipe Expander for new market demands, like higher outputs, increased wall thickness’, higher material grades up to X120, stricter out of roundness and straightness tolerances.

Recently Fontijne Grotnes implemented several product improvements to fulfill new market- and product demands:

Dedicated Expander Heads
When size or quantities matters Fontijne Grotnes can develop a dedicated expander head, for optimizing production possibilities in wall thickness, material grade, or production quantity of LSAW pipes.

As example the special design of the expander head can result in increased radial force and optimized surface area between cone and jaw configuration in order to accept pipes with increased wall thickness. For one customer Fontijne Grotnes designed an Expander Head capable of expanding 18’’ pipe with a wall thickness of 32mm for X70 grade.

New Expander Head- and Die Handling Fixtures
Fontijne Grotnes has improved its head- and die handling fixtures to respond to customer demands. This latest development is more maintenance friendly and will improve changeover time significantly! The quick tool change system creates a defined position of the centre line of the Expander Head and controls the Expander Head rotation.

With this quick tool change system a changeover time reduction of 40% can be achieved. There is also modification set available for existing Fontijne Grotnes customers.

Optimizing Cost of Ownership
Because of increasing global competition and economic pressures, the total cost of ownership of the manufacturing process is an important aspect in the purchasing process.

With the use of the Fontijne Grotnes’ Pipe Expander savings can not only be achieved on lubricants and oil during the expanding process, but also on energy:

The consumption of Expander Oil is kept to a minimum, by using an optimized expander head lubrication system in combination with a sophisticated head design. The system only uses 0.5 – 1.5 liter per (12 meter) pipe; the lowest oil consumption in the market! This results in saving more than 125,000 liter per year compared to competitive processes at a production rate of 500,000 t/yr.The expander head is well protected against dirt by seal arrangement. Washing of the expander head after each cycle is not required

Exhibitions
In 2014 Fontijne Grotnes will be present again at the Tube Dusseldorf (7-11 April) and Tube China (Shanghai, 24-27 September). During these exhibitions Fontijne Grotnes will promote its new developments.

At the Tube Dusseldorf you can find us in Hall 5, booth J13.

Please visit our website for more information about our products and related services. www.fontijnegrotnes.com