Patent attributes
A high quality hollow shell in which the occurrence of internal surface flaws caused by the rotary forging effect and/or shear deformation is prevented by suppressing the rotary forging frequency and shear deformation in a transient region at the stage of billet gripping and a worsening of thickness deviations in the top portion of the hollow shell is also prevented is reliably produced with preventing miss-rolling such as incomplete billet gripping and troubles in bottom withdrawal and an increase in the outer diameter of the hollow shell in the bottom portion. A billet is pierced while being rotated and advanced to produce a hollow shell, from which a seamless tube is finally manufactured, using a pair of skew rolls, a pair of disk rolls, and a plug under such conditions that each of the ratio (Dg/d) of the diameter Dg of the gorge portion of the skew rolls and the outer diameter d of the billet, the ratio (Dd/d) of the diameter Dd of the groove bottom of the disk rolls and the outer diameter d of the billet, the ratio (Dd/Dg) of the diameter Dg and the diameter Dd, the inlet face angle θ1 of the skew rolls, and the square root of the product (Ns×Df)0.5 of the rotational frequency Ns of the billet in a transient (non-steady state) region when billet gripping and the reduction ratio Df of the outer diameter of the billet satisfies a prescribed equation.