The ever-increasing requirements with regard to the quality of copper tubes demand innovative developments of the equipment systems. The main requirements for the production process of the tubes being tighter manufacturing tolerances as well as a better process safety while at the same time reducing the energy and personnel costs. For the tube production, alternative technologies have been developed for different copper tube applications, e.g. for installation tubing or tubes for air conditioners and refrigeration (ACR). Either solid billets are made by continuous casting, then extruded into tubes and brought up to their final dimensions by cold-rolling or drawing, or, hollow bar is obtained right away by continuous casting and rolled and drawn to the requisite tube dimensions. Fig. 1 shows an overview of these different technologies.
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