Custom Hydroforming Services
The custom hydroforming services we provide at H & H Tube are used to produce premium quality tubular products from copper, brass, steel, aluminum, and stainless steel material. Our 800 ton hydroforming press is capable of forming parts at pressures up to 60,000 psi, allowing us to process a wide range of tubing sizes and shapes.
In the hydroforming process, a tube is placed in a split mold. Once the top half of the mold is secured over the tubing, pressurized fluid enters the mold, forcing the tubing to conform to the exact shape of the mold. Because the forming process is performed using pressurized fluid, the design possibilities afforded by hydroforming are very generous and tight tolerances can be held (depending on geometry). Custom shaped cross-sections, cross-sectional transitions, and complex radius bends are a few of the design features that would typically be very difficult or impossible to reproduce using traditional forming methods, but can be efficiently produced through hydroforming.
Our presses are semi-automatic, providing optimal versatility for the manufacturing of short runs as well as high volume parts. As an ISO 9001:2015 certified industry leader in the forming and fabrication of custom tubing, we can assist customers in navigating the design considerations of the hydroforming process to determine whether hydroforming is suitable for a given application. In addition to hydroforming, we offer tube bending, machining, and vibratory finishing of custom tubular products. Lead times average approximately 6 – 8 weeks. For additional information about our custom tube hydroforming capabilities, see the table below, or contact us directly.
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Hydroforming Capabilities
| General Capabilities | High Volume Long Run | Prototypes Short Run |
| Hydroforming Type | Tubular | |
| Equipment | Hydroforming Presses | Hydraulic Presses |
| Materials | Aluminum Brass Copper | Stainless Steel Steel |
| Equipment Capabilities | Semi-Automated | |
| Tonnage | Max: 800 Tons | |
| Pressure | 60,000 psi | |
| Additional Services Provided | Deburring Hardness Testing Heat Treatment | Leak Testing Machining Vibratory Finish |
| Production Volume | Low Volume High Volume Long Runs | Short Runs Prototype Specialty Production Shop |
| Typical Lead Times | 6 – 8 Weeks |
Additional Information
| Industry Focus | Automotive Aerospace Communications Heating HVAC | Manufacturing Medical Musical Plumbing |
| Industry Standards | ASTM – American Society for Testing and Materials ISO 9001:2015 – International Organization for Standardization CBSA – Copper & Brass Service center Association TPA – Tube & Pipe Association | |
| File Formats | AutoCAD, Inventor (DWG, DWZ, IPT) BMP – Bit Mapped Graphics BobCAD CADL CATIA V4 CATIA V5 CGM DelCAM(DGK, DMT) DXF – Drawing Interchange Format, or Drawing Exchange Format Feature CAM HOOPS METAFILE HOOPS STREAM FILE HOOPS WEB FILE HPGL/2 IGES – Initial Graphics Exchange Specification, ANSI file format. | JPG or JEPG – Joint Photographic Experts Group KXL OBJ PARASOLID PDF – Portable Document Format Pro-E or Pro/Engineer (DRW, PRT, XPR) SAT – 3D ACIS Model File SolidWorks (SLDPRT, SLDDRW, SLDDRT) STEP – Standard for the Exchange of Product Model Data STL SurfCAM V3D VRML WINDOWS METAFILE |