The advantages of hydroforming are many. Mostly, they revolve around material efficiency, speed and cost savings. Traditional deep drawing methods suffer from the effects of drawing stress (on the materials) during the process. This is hard to avoid or minimize even when preventive measures are put into place. Fortunately, innovative techniques such as hydroforming address these points. The result is a more fine-tuned deep drawing process, which leads to better overall quality.
Hydroforming utilizes a pressurized oil chamber and a diaphragm which exerts pressure onto a punch. The little details like this matter all the more when you are dealing with intricate shapes or specialized designs. For example, a project that requires fine-tuning your psi would be ideal for hydroforming. Where wrinkling or warped materials would be a concern with traditional deep drawing, hydroforming affords you the high precision with pressure control.
One of the strongest advantages of hydroforming is that a wide variety of metals are still viable for this process. From stainless steel to aluminum, you don’t limit your choices here. Furthermore, not all metals or specific metal shaping scenarios are met well with traditional stamping techniques. It’s too broad of a solution, so again we round back to hydroforming as a more intricate, fine-tuned method. Cost savings play in here, too. With hydroforming, you cut down on costs related to development by eliminating the need for steel tooling and accommodating for various materials. Whatever the material, hydroforming can accommodate it.
Finally, Hydroforming is simply more efficient and offers a wider variety of solutions. It’s the best of all worlds for deep drawing.
The benefits of THF include:
- Seamless bonding
- Increased structural strength
- Better load support compared with stamped sheet metal
- Reduced weight
- Ability to maintain high-quality surfaces for finishing
- Fewer parts, which means lower tooling cost
- Less scrap
- Lower capital costs
- Reduced dimensional variability
- Increasing uses and applications
American Hydroformers specializes in the tube hydroforming process. To learn more about this process and how you can take advantage of our expertise, contact us today!
