Commercial Tubing & Pipe

Commercial tubing & pipe are produced in both the seamless and welded process. Seamless starts with forged hollow bar while welded (also known as "as-welded", "sunk" or "CD/OD Tubing") starts with flat strip stock. The seamless process accommodates very heavy wall or high pressure applications but is expensive and tends to have concentricity variances. As-welded tube will have the residual weld bead of metal protruding into the ID of the tubing. The ID will be rough since the material is not drawn over a mandrel.

As a rule, commercial tubing is annealed, has large dimensional tolerances, lower quality finishes and relatively high minimum order levels compared with our T.I.G. welded, plug drawn, hard temper stock. Within process capabilities, all three manufacturing processes may be available for unlisted sizes, alloys and tempers. Vita typically carries commercial grade tubes in 20' lengths which can be cut for shipping, but we usually sell 10' or greater per item for 1.5" OD or smaller unless drops are available (except Hydrogen generator sizes). Larger sized tubes can be sold for less than a 10' quantity. Lastly, commercial tubing and pipe are covered by a variety of specifications. Details can be found at www.ASTM.org, www.SAE.org, www.MATWEB.com