For the nuclear icebreaker "Russia", the most powerful in the world, a new technology has been developed for the production of titanium pipes with spiral fins and a fine-grained, ultra-fine regulated structure. They are used in the production of equipment for the icebreaker.
The first batch of such pipes for heat exchange systems of power plants was already shipped by Chepetsky Mechanical Plant (part of Rosatom's TVEL Fuel Company) to the Rosatom Machine-Building Division.
These pipes required their own new production technology. It allows the production of pipes with an ultra-fine grain size of no more than 7 μm, which has a positive effect on the strength and corrosion properties of the pipes.
The complexity of producing such pipes lies in the formation of spiral fins while maintaining the same pitch between them along the entire length of the pipe. To maintain this pitch, it is necessary to observe many parameters in the heating and twisting process.
The complex design makes them [titanium pipes] indispensable for heat exchange systems of ship power plants: thanks to the twisted shape of the fins, gaps are formed between the pipes, which ensures the rigidity of the entire steam generator structure. Seamless pipes with spiral fins made of PT-7M titanium alloy have high specific and corrosion-mechanical strength in seawater, a high level of reliability and a long service life, which reduces the number of repairs and replacements of power plant components.
Chepetsky Mechanical Plant also works with other complex orders. It provides the Russian shipbuilding industry with domestic titanium pipes instead of imported ones, and not only it. This is the only enterprise in Russia that produces a wide range of titanium pipes for steam generating plants and nuclear power engineering.
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