Tube Sheet Cladding: Explosion Clad Tube Sheets
Excellence Through Consistency in High-Demand Environments
In the world of critical process engineering, the performance, safety, and longevity of heat exchangers and pressure vessels rely on high-quality tube sheets. At Shockwave Metalworking Technologies, we manufacture premium cladded tube sheets built for the most rigorous operational environments. Our solutions provide exceptional corrosion resistance, superior dimensional stability, and long-term performance, ensuring operational efficiency even under extreme conditions.
Minimizing operational downtime is critical. That’s why our cladded tube sheets are suitable for emergency replacements and fast maintenance cycles. With industry-leading turnaround times and verifiable quality, Shockwave delivers reliable solutions that reduce interruptions and maximize asset availability.
For help choosing between solid, clad and weld-overlay tube sheets, see our guide to tube sheet materials.
Shockwave Technology: The Foundation of Superior Tube Sheets
The unmatched integrity and quality of our cladded tube sheets are built from our proprietary Vacuum Explosion Cladding technology. This innovative vacuum-based process is the key to creating a 100% homogeneous bond between the base material and the selected clad material, an essential requirement for preventing material failure in aggressive media. The result is a zero leakage bond that offers a structural reliability far beyond what is possible with traditional methods.
To further ensure the absolute best performance, we apply advanced vacuum cladding techniques during production and machining. This significantly reduces residual stress within the tube sheet material. This meticulous process allows us to achieve and maintain exceptional flatness up to 1 mm/m across all dimensions.
Our technology is highly versatile, supporting an extensive range of material combinations and leveraging high-performance stainless steels, duplex grades, nickel alloys, and titanium. Shockwave can provide fully customized, engineered solutions perfectly tailored to your specific process requirements.
Applications Across High-Demand Industries
Due to their exceptional material integrity and resistance to extreme operating conditions, Shockwave claddedtubesheets are the preferred choice for critical equipment in some of the world’s most demanding industries. Our products ensure reliable, leak-free operation where component failure is simply not an option.
We serve clients across key sectors, including:
- Oil & Gas and Petrochemical: Used in reactors, fractionation columns, and complex heat exchangers exposed to highly corrosive process media.
- Chemical Processing: Essential for processes involving aggressive acids, high pressures, and high-temperature environments.
- Power Generation: Utilized in feedwater heaters and condensers, where both erosion and corrosion resistance are vital.
- Fertilizers and Mining: Providing long-term stability against chemical attack and abrasive materials.
Technical Data & Customization
Shockwave Metalworking Technologies is equipped to handle projects of significant scale and technical complexity, offering one of the most extensive ranges of cladded tube sheets available in the industry.
We take pride in our ability to offer custom cladding combinations and bespoke solutions to meet your precise operational requirements, including a wide variety of diameters, thicknesses, and material combinations.
For a complete list of standard sizes, detailed material specifications, and full technical data, please download our official Tube sheets Brochure.
Key Performance Feautures of Tube Sheets
100% Homogeneous Bond: Ensures zero leakage and complete structural integrity between base and clad layers, essential for safety and longevity
Outstanding Corrosion Resistance: Significantly extends the operational lifespan in harsh chemical, thermal, and high-pressure environments
High Dimensional Stability: Achieves precise flatness (up to 1 mm/m), ensuring a perfect seal and precise fit within the heat exchanger shell
Stress-Reduced Material: Our vacuum cladding process minimizes internal residual stress, dramatically enhancing overall reliability and mitigating the risk of premature failure
Efficiency and Sustainability Through Shockwave Technology
The high-integrity bonding process achieved through Shockwave Technology is inherently linked to both superiorefficiency and sustainability.
Enhanced Efficiency:
The guaranteed zero leakage, 100% homogeneous bond dramatically increases the lifespan of the tube sheet, minimizing the need for frequent replacements and reducing overall maintenance costs. Furthermore, the vacuum cladding process reduces residual stresses, ensuring the dimensional stability required for optimal heat transfer performance throughout the component’s operational life.
Sustainability Benefits:
Cladding is an inherently sustainable material solution. By using an economical, heavy-gauge base material and only applying a thin, high-performance layer of expensive, corrosion-resistant clad material where it is truly needed, we significantly reduce the consumption of high-cost, high-impact alloys. This targeted material usage, combined with the extreme durability of the bonding process, results in lower life-cycle costs and a reduced environmental footprint.
Tube sheet cladding for heat exchangers
Tube sheet cladding puts a corrosion-resistant alloy on the process side of a heat exchanger tube sheet while a strong, economical steel carries the pressure. With explosion cladding the clad layer is a solid, wrought alloy plate at its full specified chemistry — there is no dilution as with weld overlay — so the full clad thickness is available for drilling, tube expansion and tube-to-tubesheet welding. How the tubes are welded to the clad layer: tube-to-tubesheet welding on clad tube sheets.
Design points to specify
- Clad thickness: include an allowance for facing, gasket grooves and tube-to-tubesheet welds; 3–10 mm is common for tube sheets, and up to 50 mm is possible.
- Base thickness and grade: set by the pressure design of the exchanger (TEMA and ASME Section VIII or EN 13445, done by the exchanger designer); Shockwave supplies base thicknesses from 10 to 500 mm.
- Shape and size: round blanks or rectangles, single pieces up to 50 tonnes, delivered flat within 1 mm/m so drilling stays accurate.
- Testing: 100% ultrasonic testing of the bond, tested per ASME SA-263 / SA-264 / SA-265 or EN 13445-2, also after simulated PWHT.
Typical material combinations
| Base material | Clad layer | Typical service |
|---|---|---|
| SA516 Gr. 60/70 or P265GH / P355GH | Stainless steel 304L / 316L | Refinery and chemical heat exchangers, feedwater heaters |
| SA516 Gr. 70 or P355GH | Duplex 2205 / super duplex 2507 | Seawater coolers, chloride-bearing process streams |
| SA516 Gr. 70 | Titanium Gr. 1 / Gr. 2 | Seawater condensers, desalination, PTA and chlor-alkali plants |
| SA516 Gr. 70 | Nickel alloys 625, 825, C-276 | Acid gas, sour service, highly corrosive chemical duty |
| Carbon steel | Copper-nickel 90/10 / 70/30 | Seawater-cooled condensers and coolers |
For other alloys see the full list of clad plate material combinations, or read how explosion cladding creates the bond.
Tube sheets at a glance
Explosion clad tube sheets combine a strong carbon or low-alloy steel base with a corrosion-resistant clad layer, bonded by vacuum explosion welding. They give heat exchangers excellent corrosion resistance, dimensional stability and long service life, with fast turnaround for maintenance jobs.
Sizes and capacities
| Parameter | Capability |
|---|---|
| Base thickness | 10 – 500 mm |
| Cladding thickness | 1 – 50 mm |
| Weight | Up to 50 tonnes |
| Flatness | Within 1 mm/m |
| Clad materials | Stainless steels, duplex, nickel alloys, titanium and more |
| Bond | 100% homogeneous, zero leakage |
See all clad plate material combinations or contact us for a custom combination.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is tube sheet cladding?
Tube sheet cladding is the bonding of a corrosion-resistant alloy layer to a steel tube sheet, so the process side resists corrosion while the steel carries the pressure. Explosion cladding gives a full-thickness wrought clad layer with a 100% metallurgical bond.
Explosion clad or weld overlay for tube sheets?
Explosion cladding gives a uniform, undiluted clad layer of any thickness and a flat plate with low residual stress, ideal for drilling and tube welding. Weld overlay suits small or one-off parts but adds heat input, dilution and distortion.
What is an explosion clad tube sheet?
A heat-exchanger tube sheet with a carbon or low-alloy steel base and a corrosion-resistant clad layer bonded by explosion welding. The clad face resists the process fluid while the base carries the pressure.
Which clad materials are available for tube sheets?
Stainless steels, duplex and super duplex, nickel alloys and titanium, among others. Custom combinations are available on request.
What sizes can Shockwave clad?
Base thickness 10–500 mm, clad thickness 1–50 mm, and weights up to 50 tonnes.
How flat are vacuum clad tube sheets?
Vacuum cladding reduces residual stress during production and machining, keeping flatness within 1 mm per metre.
Is the bond leak-tight?
Yes. The 100% homogeneous bond between base and clad layer ensures zero leakage, verified by ultrasonic testing of the full bond area.
How fast can you deliver?
Production is fully in-house, so turnaround is fast — suitable for urgent maintenance and shutdown jobs.
Related guides
- How to weld clad plates — joint design, filler metals and testing
- Explosion clad vs roll bonded vs weld overlay — which clad plate method to choose
- Clad plate material combinations — stainless, titanium, nickel alloys and more
Download Data Sheet
If you’d like us to send you the technical data sheet for this product, please fill out this form and we’ll send it to you right away.