Russia-based TMK, one of the world's leading oil and gas steel pipe producers, has stated that a robot-aided stamping unit for making blanks of box-and-pin joints has been launched at its Orsk Machine-Building Plant subsidiary.
The unit will produce precise stamped blanks that will be used to manufacture box-and-pin joints with the help of up-to-date technologies. The machine's capacity is estimated at 150,000 blanks a year. The blanks will have outer diameters in the range of 105-184 mm and inner diameters of 48-110 mm and be up to 607 mm long. The installation of the unit required an investment totaling RUB 430 million.
The launch of this robot-aided stamping unit means the plant can improve its metal utilization factor by 1.3 times (up to 0.7), creating at least RUB 20 million in annual savings. Besides, energy spending is expected to decline since natural gas will be used instead of electric power.