What are studded tubes?
Studded tubes, the other name is pintube, as below pictures show, there are a lot of studs have been welded on the outside surface of the bare tube by automatic or half-automatic methods. The studs look like hedgehog, right?
Where are the studded tubes used?
The studded pipes are often used in the fired heaters or furnace or boiler as heat exchange parts especially in the convection chamber.
What are the advantage of the studded pipes?
As high efficiency heat exchange parts, studded pipes have 3-10 times surface area than the bare tubes, it means as below:
- They have higher efficiency than the bare tubes in the heat exchangers;
- Under the condition of same heat exchange volume, studded pipes can help reduce the usage of the bare tube and save the steel procurement cost.
What is the difference between the pintube and finned tube?
Then you must have a question, the normal finned tubes, whether solid or serrated, they have same heat exchange result, why should choose the studded pipes and what are the differences between the finned tubes and studded tubes?
This is a very good question.
Actually, the finned tubes are more popular than studded tubes in the heat exchanger field. But in some cases, especially in the furnace whose fuel is solid or liquid, there are a lot of dirty or dust in the system, sometimes even with a lot of corrosive materials such as sulfuric acid atmospheres. If we use the finned tubes in the harsh environments, the dirty, dust and corrosive materials will be stacked on the fins and they are very hard to be cleared away. After a period, the heat resistance will go up and the heat transfer efficiency will be lowered down. But if we use studded tubes, the dusts are much easier to be blow away without damaging it and the studs are much more anti-corrosive than the thin fins. So the industrial convention is as below:
- when in corrosive or the fuel is solid or liquid, we need to use the studded tubes. Although the heat transfer efficiency are not as high as fin tubes, but they are much easier to be clean.
- When the fuel is gas, we can use finned tubes. They have higher heat transfer efficiency and there is less dust in the system to broke the finned tubes.
What are the material and size of the studded pipes?
The base pipes and studs materials can be carbon steel, stainless steel, alloy steel, copper and copper-nickel etc according to the customers’ design. The surface of the studded pipes can also be coated with protective coating according to customers’ request.
The OD of the bare tubes could be from 50 mm to 219mm and the diameter of the studs could be from 8mm to 12.5mm. And the length of the pipes could be from 2 meter to 24 meter.
How is the studded pipe be produced?
The studs are welded onto the pipe surface by high frequency welding machine in staggered. The welding machine is precisely controlled by PLC controller.
Jinbes is professional in the manufacturing of the finned tube and studded tubes. We can process the studded tubes according to customer drawings. Chinese steel material price is very competitive while the quality is very good. If you are now finding the right supplier, why not fill below form and maybe we can have a further discussion?