The Hydroforming Process

After the structural and stress analysis calculations have been completed, a die is produced to form the part. The die is placed in the hydroforming press and water is injected into the mold under extremely high pressure, deforming the metal into the shape of die. These machines have independent control of axial feeding, internal pressure and counter pressure which increase the material shaping capability of the process tremendously over other more traditional forming methods.

Hydroforming vs. Metal Stamping

Hydroforming offers many advantages over the traditional metal forming methods of stamping, spinning and tube bending. They include:

• Reduced parts cost due to process efficiencies
• Up to 40% reduction in weight of final parts
• 6% increase in structural strength of parts
• Up to 50% reduction in tooling costs
• Project cycle time reduced up to 75%
• Up to 50% reduction in scrap
• Higher intricacy reduces secondary operations
• Consistent processes with tolerances to ± 0.001”
• Less sensitive to raw material variations