The plugs are to be delivered in several sizes. Baosteel plans to use them to produce a variety of tube dimensions. They will be installed in a cone-type piercer delivered by SMS Meer some years ago. Baosteel uses these piercer plugs for the production of seamless tubes with chromium alloy. In making this investment the company aims to improve its process stability. What's more, Baosteel is looking to gain cost advantages due to the long service life of the PQSC plugs.
 
PQSC stands for "Premium Quality Surface Coating". The PQSC piercer plugs have a special ceramic coating to ensure high service lives for improved inside tube surfaces. The plugs are used in the first stage of seamless tube production, cross-roll piercing. Here the ingots are rolled over a piercer plug. These solid steel ingots are then turned into tube shells.
 
During the piercing process the plugs are surrounded by red-hot steel and exposed to extreme thermal and mechanical stresses. PQSC piercer plugs from SMS Meer are capable of withstanding such stresses for particularly long periods of time. This enables tube producers to save tooling costs and increase their plant's productivity. In addition, PQSC piercer plugs are able to meet high standards in terms of production reliability, freedom from flaws, dimensional accuracy, and thereby safeguard product quality.
 
Both Baosteel and SMS Meer can look back on many years of successful cooperation together. Back in the 1970s the Chinese company took delivery of a tube mandrel mill from SMS Meer, then called Mannesmann Meer.