New Ravi water fuel cell document up question

[GotHydro?]

I found 2 conflicting issues. According to the copied text bellow I can't figure out what to do first:
Page 13: "The tubes have been fixed to a lathe and sanded with very fine grit paper to remove any oxidation on the surface after annealing of the pipes."

"As we are cutting the pipes and slightly finishing the surfaces with sand paper to remove any imbedded impurities during tube drawing, it’s all cold working. So you need to relieve these induces stresses in the lattice through annealing."

Is the "slightly finishing the surface with sand paper" considered also as an induced stress? My pipes aren't annealed so I have to send them in and then I would like to sandblast them to achieve perfect surface for conditioning.

[rickoff]

Re: Annealing and sanding

Hi there GotHydro,

I can see where that may sound confusing. To understand this, you must first understand the manufacturing process. You are talking about "drawn" pipes, or tubing, which refers to the manufacturing process of seamless pipe or tubing. To simplify, let's assume that it is actually pipe. During the manufacturing process, the metal for the pipe is first formed into a solid billet (a solid metal casting) of cylindrical shape. The billet is then "drawn" (pulled) over a piercing rod, which results in the hollow core of the pipe. You can just imagine the stress that occurs to the metal during this forming process. If left in this state, the stress points can become hairline fractures that will spread and grow larger, especially if the pipe is heated and/or cooled during use, or subjected to high pressures, and of course that would eventually lead lead to failure. Seamless pipe is normally chosen by fabricators because of its superior strength as compared to seamed pipe, and therefore most seamless pipe does pass through an annealing process. Annealing is a process whereby the formed pipe is heat treated by placing it in a special oven, at a closely regulated temperature, for an extended duration of time. This heating relaxes the metal to relieve the stress points. After annealing, some impurities will have risen to the surface, and the metal will appear somewhat discolored. High quality stainless, or other smooth surface metal piping, would have its surface ground and then polished with special equipment. So unless you manufactured the pipes yourself, there's a good chance that they may already have been annealed. Check with the manufacturer if you are not certain. The author of the article which you quoted probably purchased annealed, but unfinished pipe, and therefore was sanding the pipe on a lathe, with fine emery paper, to obtain a surface similar to manufacturer polishing. Incidentally, FYI, pipe sizes refer to the inside diameter of the pipe, while tubing sizes refer to the outside diameter. You probably already know that, but I thought I would point that out because the terminology is often confused or misused.

I hope this gives you a better understanding of the subject matter. Happy building to you,

Rickoff

[GotHydro?]

Thanks Rickoff for respond.
Below is the whole page and I still can't get if I sand down/sandblast those tubes if that is considered also as a stress on the material which has to be dealt with by annealing it but again then I have to sand it down after annealing so it's the circle I can't get out of it. I ordered large pipes and both sizes are annealed and sanded. But because of the cutting I done and some drilling I consider it as a stress to the material according to the Ravi's statement bellow. The way I understand the statement is that "We" are drawing the tube our self or he is having the equipment to do that but unless he is working in a tube factory I am having doubt about him doing this drawing at home.
Here is the section again: "As we are cutting the pipes and slightly finishing the surfaces with sand paper to remove any imbedded impurities during tube drawing, it’s all cold working. So you need to relieve these induces stresses in the lattice through annealing".

And here is the whole page:
"Preparation of the Tubes: IT IS ADVISED THAT POLISHED TUBES ARE NOT TO BE USED IN MAKING THE WFC. If one is to use them make sure they are not Nickel plated or Hard Chrome plated pipes. If they are Plain SS 304L or 316L but polished you must use a sand paper on them before hand. The brightness of your tubes reflection is based on how small a grit of sand paper you use. The tubes have been fixed to a lathe and sanded with very fine grit paper to remove any oxidation on the surface after annealing of the pipes. The inner tubes need to be sanded to remove all discoloration (oxides). Use as small a grit to get fine scratches and when you condition at low amps the bonding between the white coat (explanation later) and the metal is good. Do not try high amp conditioning at the start as you want a thin fine layer on the fresh metal.
If you order large pipes and cut them, you need to get the tubes annealed once they are cut and finished to lengths before being assembled. It’s done in a separate inert atmosphere furnace of Nitrogen or Argon. You have people who do heat treatment for metals they'll give you the procedure if you tell them the grade you are using.
Tell them that you need a bright anneal in nitrogen or argon atmosphere. Annealing is done after every cold work operation and at the finishing stage to reset the lattice structure. As we are cutting the pipes and slightly finishing the surfaces with sand paper to remove any imbedded impurities during tube drawing, it’s all cold working. So you need to relieve these induces stresses in the lattice through annealing.
Ravi advises - Use an abrasive cutter or a saw and then anneal them as you induce a lot of stresses in the lattice during cutting due to the hot and cold areas. If you use laser then you could cut the annealed tubes as you are not inducing any mechanical stresses during the cutting but you could check along the length with a compass and see if there’s any difference. Take a compass close to the tubes and you can usually see it deflecting before annealing but once the annealing is done the deflection is a fraction of what you have seen before on the same tubes or none at all, this is what you want".

[ashtweth]

What an engineer

looks like Rickoff is a metal urgy professor as well as an expert in most things
Adding to the doc so you wont have to type that again

[rickoff]

To Ash and GotHydro

Hi Ash,

No, I am not a metallurgist, and I don't consider myself an expert in anything, but I have learned and experienced a lot during my lifetime and am happy to share that with anyone. The only reason why I do happen to know something about metallurgy is because my dad was, in fact, a brilliant metallurgist. He often took me on tours of his lab at Magnetic Metals Company, and showed me some really interesting R & D experiments, as well as actual metal formation and finishing processes. His brother was also into metals, and after graduating from Yale he started up a heat treating business with assistance from my dad. I actually worked with my uncle at the heat treating company one summer, when I was about 17, and learned quite a bit about the various processes that he used for annealing and hardening of metals. Later I used what I had learned from my uncle to write a report for my high school science class. Like my dad and uncle, I was also fascinated with metals, but mostly from a machining and metal crafting point of view. After high school, I took courses at an automotive technical institute and then jumped at the opportunity to work in an automotive machine and speed shop rebuilding engines, starters, alternators, transmissions, and differentials. Later I worked in tool and die, and high precision/close tolerance machining. At the same time, I had parallel interests in electronics, and took several practical courses at a technical school. That lead to a job building hi-tech precision electronic enclosures and printed circuit boards for an electronics company. Towards the end of my employment there I became their quality control manager, and also worked as an assistant to the company's R&D engineer. I enjoyed working there, and learned a lot, but when it was finally disclosed to me that we were actually fabricating components for missile guidance systems, I decided to leave and start a business of my own. I had already been moonlighting as a wood and leather worker, musician, and as a piano tuner/technician, and was already quite familiar with the pneumatics employed in player pianos, so ramped up my business to include reed and pipe organ tuning, repair, and rebuilding. I found this to be very satisfying and rewarding work, and perfectly suited to my talents and experience in music, woodwork, metalwork, leatherwork, mechanics, electronics, and pneumatics. In some instances, I would find that several metal organ pipes at a church were missing or vandalized, and constructed replacements for them. I did this the old way, by combining and pouring the alloys into flat sheets, and then forming the structures of the pipes from that metal. It is interesting to me to note that some people believe that Stan Meyer actually may have tuned his pipes by slotting them at the top, as is done in tuning some types of organ pipes. While pipes in water would not generate the same tones or harmonics that they do in air, the technique could be useful in manipulating resonance, and the degree of harmonic distortion produced, and this could have a considerable effect on the end results of Hydrogen production.

GotHydro, I see that you are still just slightly confused and may need some further clarification. Ravi is right in saying that metal cutting can inuce new stress points, and that is particularly true when the cutting method produces a significant amount of rapid heat buildup, such as when using a cutoff disc. Stainless pipes are difficult to cut, and thus are very susceptible to heat buildup unless you go very slow and use an abundance of coolant. I would suggest that anyone building a tube or pipe project order their material laser precut to the desired length. That will save work, time, and expense. If you purchase precut and polished ss pipes, you only need to sand the inner surfaces of the larger pipes, and the outer surfaces of the smaller pipes that go inside the larger ones. These are the active surfaces, and sanding them has a positive effect on HHO generation. If you have pipe that has just come from an annealing process, you need to sand it on all surfaces to remove glazing and impurities. Sanding itself is not ordinarily a stress producing procedure, unless done dry at high speed on a lathe, which would tend to produce considerable rapid heating in the metal's surface area. It is best to use wet sanding techniques, and work slowly to keep things cool.

I hope this will make things much clearer for you. Good luck with your project, and be sure to share your results with us.

Best wishes, Rick