What is Roll Grooving? What is the Purpose of Grooved Pipes?

What is Roll Grooving?

The grooving process was developed in the mid-1950s and it has since emerged as a feasible connection method for industrial pipeline applications as opposed to welding and threading. Roll grooves were traditionally developed for light or thin-walled pipes. However, they are now used for a wide variety of pipe sizes and wall thicknesses without compromising the performance of the pipe joint or reducing the flow rate. The process works as follows: the pipe is placed on the drive wheel (the bottom wheel). Subsequently, the drive wheel makes the pipe rotate and the groove wheel (the upper wheel) grooves the pipe. The grooving process applies to copper, aluminum, steel, stainless steel, PVC and copper-nickel.

What is the Purpose of Grooved Pipes?

The installation of a fire sprinkler system consists of pipes. There is permanent water stored in these pipes which will automatically be released the moment the fire is detected. Because of the water stored in these pipes, there is a lot of pressure on them. Therefore, the pipes must be connected properly.

The grooves on both ends of two pipe ends could be joined together with a sprinkler coupling. The grooves in the pipe ensure that the pipes can be securely attached utilizing a sprinkler coupling.

Cut Groove vs. Roll Groove

When forming a roll groove, a pipe is cold formed to make a circular and extensive groove in the pipe. A groove is created without removing any pipe material. This is a new method compared to the cut groove, where pipe material is physically removed from the outside diameter of the pipe. Thereby, a groove is effectively cut into the pipe. Since no material is effectively removed with the roll groove, less waste remains than with a cut groove. Therefore, little cleaning work is required which subsequently speeds up the process of grooving pipes. Roll grooving can be applied on both heavy and light-walled pipes without weakening them against any corrosions. However, if the pipe wall is too thick, cut grooving the pipe will provide a more reliable groove.

Advantages of the Groove Master

Safe to operate

The Groove Master of Copier Machinery works electro-mechanically. Compared to hydraulic-driven grooving machines, the Groove Master produces no flaring, no leakage, and less noise. Therefore, the machine improves the operator’s working conditions.

User-friendly

In addition, the focus of this innovative machine is on user-friendliness as the automatized machine possesses an easy and quick setup on the screen. There is no need to have mechanical knowledge to operate the machine. After one training, everyone can operate our Groove Master. There is no need for mechanical adjustments as well. The parameters can be entered on the screen of the machine and the grooving process can be started. The grooving parameters and batch specifications – tube diameter, wall thickness, length, material, and the number of pipes on one batch – can be entered manually. To facilitate and speed up the process it is also possible to save the settings for later. Furthermore, it is possible to choose between the available recipes within the program.

Wide machining range & robustness

The Groove Master has a grooving range of ¾” – 24” and can groove a wall thickness up to 8 mm in one pass. Also, it is built robustly and stably and is therefore manufactured for high production volumes. This means that the machine is developed to groove many pipe-ends per shift.

Durability

The grooving machine does not have a fixed lifespan, but it is certainly durable constructed. The durability of the machine ensures that it requires little to no maintenance. However, should the machine require maintenance, this should not immediately be a major problem since the machine is equipped with an IoT/cloud system. This allows Copier Machinery to access the machine remotely to be able to identify and fix the problem as quickly as possible. The customer’s production will not be delayed due to this fast service & support.