HUNTSVILLE, AL — Wolverine Tube Inc. is introducing new products for the HVACR market that it says use new and enhanced technologies to provide improved heat transfer performance and energy efficiency.

Turbo-MD™ is a new technical tube product line using Wolverine's new patent pending Micro Deformation Technology. Technical tube is one of the key components in large commercial air conditioners (chillers) that drives system energy efficiency, says the company. Micro Deformation Technology is a process designed to elevate surface enhancements to a new level, allowing greater heat transfer performance, the manufacturer says.

Technical tube produced using the new Micro Deformation Technology should increase heat exchanger efficiency by as much as 30% over traditional enhanced tube, says the company. It is designed to provide economic benefit to customers by not only increasing the efficiency of existing products, but by also allowing similar performance and efficiency from smaller platform products that should be less costly to manufacture. Turbo-MD is expected to be available for commercial production beginning in early 2003.

Wolverine's Research & Development Center is also introducing a new internally enhanced light-wall welded tube product line with up to 25% higher heat transfer performance over similar existing product lines, the company says. Light-wall welded tubes are used primarily in light commercial and residential air conditioners.

Traditional seamless tube surface enhancements include rifling or cross-hatching. Wolverine's welded tube process is said to allow for the development of innovative new surfaces. According to the company, these recently developed, patent pending surfaces can have a "dramatic" effect, especially on the size and efficiency of air-cooled condensers.

"Wolverine is particularly proud to continue delivering leading edge technologies to all markets, including the HVAC market," said Dennis Horowitz, chairman, president, and chief executive officer. "Micro Deformation Technology significantly improves the performance and efficiency of our existing product offerings. Additionally, we expect to further augment that level of performance in future product offerings as we and our customers optimize the capabilities of this technology."

For more information, visit the company's website at www.wlv.com.

Publication date: 12/02/2002