Design and Implementation of a Tube Wall Thickness Measurement System

Abstract

This paper describes the design and implementation of a gage for measuring the wall thickness of hot rolled steel tubing at an actual production facility. The design is based upon a statistical analysis of the tube samples, and upon the economic realities of mill operating conditions. Issues relating to time constraints, uneven sample preparation, a mill operating environment, and differences between gage operators are addressed. The gage records more data from the tubes than could be taken manually, and therefore allows the accompanying software to apply unique algorithms for the calculation of hexing and eccentricity in each sample. All results are recorded and stored in a database for continuous use in statistical process control.