A major order for small diameter, seamless stainless steel heat exchanger tubes has been won by Sandvik Materials Technology. Valued at GBP 725,000, the order was placed by fabricator Wellman Graham, part of the Wellman Group, and covered tubes for 12 large heat exchangers for a sulphur expansion recovery project in an Eastern European refinery. The project was undertaken to upgrade existing carbon steel units with stainless steel. The heat exchangers were manufactured on the Wellman Thermal Products site at Oldbury in the West Midlands.
Sandvik supplied the 12 U-bend sets of 20mm and 19.05mm outside diameter tubes in type 316L stainless steel from Sandvik Chomutov Precision Tubes Ltd, its manufacturing plant in the Czech Republic. Sandvik Chomutov U-bends are produced in-house from cold pilgered straight tubes in sizes from 12mm to 38mm outside diameter and precision bent within radii of 1.5 x OD up to 1500mm.
