There are four main types of tube bending processes, check out Andy Worthington‘s blog, which highlights all four and what each is used for.
his is the most commonly used type of bending process. Depending on the requirement, you can have bending without a mandrel, which is commonly called empty bending.
Figure 1 shows you the configuration of tooling used, with a mandrel included, during a draw bending process. This application is mainly used in industries such as Automotive, Aerospace, Furniture, HVAC, Oil & Gas and many more.
This process is mainly used when bending wire, or parts that are allowed to distort or flatten slightly.
As wire is a solid material it can be compressed around the tooling without any issues, unlike tube which can collapse.
Compression bending is used to manufacture furniture, crowd barriers, shopping trollies and wheelbarrows.
This type of bending is commonly used for extremely large diameters, with very thick-walled pipes.
This uses a process in which the pipe or tube is heated during the bending process.
This type of bending is at a very slow speed, The combination of speed, local heat and cooling allows for bending bigger profiles.
Induction bending is used in industries such as ship building and energy.
This type of bending is mainly used when the requirement is for long sweeping bends.
Rather than bending with tools, push or roll bending is a case of feeding the tube through a set of rollers, which give you a more gradual bend.
This is commonly used in industries such as automotive roll bars and cages, stairlift manufacture, architectural etc.
There are some other types of tube bending which are less commonly used.
Press bending and Ram Extrusion Bending are found for very specific requirements.
Head to our YouTube page to watch our tube bending machines in action.
