Romania’s TMK-Artrom granted SMS group the final acceptance certificate for a tube-and-pipe heat-treatment line that was ordered in March 2016. Designed for an annual capacity of 160,000 tons, the line will be used for the production of seamless high-strength pipes up to a wall thickness of 60 mm (2.36 inches) for mechanical applications and OCTG pipes.

The line mainly consists of an austenitizing furnace with walking-beam transport system, cooling quenching head, quenching tank, walking-beam tempering furnace and cooling bed. The line allows various process steps, such as quenching, normalizing and tempering. The furnaces are heated by eco-friendly, digitally controlled recuperative burners, which allow fuel savings of up to 5% compared to conventional burners.