Reducing
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Reducing
(1) In metalworking, a process for drawing round billets and seamless and welded pipe in such a way as to reduce the cross section through a uniform circumferential compression. The process can be carried out on rotary forging machines or reducing mills, and the billets can be either preheated or drawn cold.
The reducing process has significantly broadened the variety of billets and pipes that can be rolled and markedly increased the productivity of the equipment. The full extent to which pipe can be reduced in the stands of a reducing mill (from nine to 26 stands) may reach 70 percent. Depending on the mode of reducing, the thickness of the wall of the pipe may increase, decrease, or remain unchanged. The maximum speed in reducing is 7–10 m/sec. The compression of continuously cast slabs to reduce the width, which is usually carried out on special reducing units, is also called reducing.
(2) In heat engineering, a reduction in the pressure of a vapor or gas through the use of, for example, reducing valves and reducers.