American Cast Iron Pipe Company

Gene L Oliver

John R Washington

Apparatus and method for gauging and rounding, at room temperature, a section of fully formed seamless ductile iron pipe that has an out-of-round initial cross-section profile and/or a larger than desired initial gauge. The apparatus includes a set of hour-glass shaped gauging/rounding rolls arranged so that the combined profiles of adjacent rolls forms a substantially continuous circular of precise diameter. In operation, the ductile iron pipe is passed though the opening in the set of gauging/rounding rolls, thereby causing the pipe to be gauged and rounded. The pipe is conveyed through one or two sets of rolls to accommodate multiple pipe diameters by a transport mechanism consisting of a rail mounted push car which is moved by one or more fluid actuated cylinders anchored to a base in common with the rail.

Pipe gauging and rounding apparatus and method

In a process for centrifugal casting metal pipe in a metal mold in which the mold is cooled by the application of cooling water to the external surface, the application of cooling water is interrupted for a time just prior to the pouring of molten metal to a time generally corresponding to the time of separation of the pipe being cast from the inner surface of the mold to thereby permit limited dilation of the mold and reduce tensile stress in the external portion of the mold.

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Hoover, AL, United States of America

Gene L Oliver