Hydraulic Presses – Common Uses

Hydraulic presses are widely used in a range of industries. They're commonly seen in manufacturing, construction, recycling and more.

They're also useful in laboratories for sample preparation, especially X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF). Their capability to maintain full pressure throughout the entire press stroke process ensures consistent results.

Compression

Hydraulic presses are commonly employed for compressing metal. This process involves a hydraulic fluid flowing through a small cylinder (plunger) and applying pressure on an adjacent larger cylinder (ram).

Presses apply pressure to metal until it takes the desired shape, which is commonly employed in sheet metal forming.

One common use for a hydraulic press is to compress powdered samples. This method of testing materials to assess their strength and durability can be highly effective.

Compression is an integral component of recycling specialty waste products. This technique helps repurpose items like oil filters, which can be compressed into convenient cubes for disposal.

Bending

Hydraulic presses are indispensable tools in many manufacturing processes, often employed to bend metal. They're used for fabricating truck beds, automobile parts and even roofs for houses.

Hydraulic presses have many uses, but all involve the use of a ram that can be controlled by an electronic controller. This enables trained operators to input information regarding bend angle, plate thickness and width into the controller for processing.

Making the decision to purchase a hydraulic press is an important one for businesses looking to boost production efficiency. But there are several factors to take into account before investing in one of these machines.

First and foremost, selecting a press brake with sufficient tonnage is essential. This will determine how much pressure the punch can apply during bending; higher tonnages are ideal for thicker metals while lower ones work best with thin materials.

Drawing

Hydraulic presses are indispensable tools in many manufacturing operations, from fabrication and recycling to stamping and bearing work. Fabricators utilize them for part production while recyclers compress specialty waste items like oil filters in order to reuse or discard them.

In addition to bending and forming, a press can also be employed for drawing part from a sheet metal blank. This process may be completed using either single-action or double-action draws.

The press can also be configured with a triple-action configuration, featuring punch or forming tool on the main draw ram, clamp ram in the middle and knockout cylinder and/or bed cushion on lower ram. This configuration can be tailored to your forming application and allows you to adjust tonnage throughout the forming process without worrying about wrinkles or tears.

Assembly

Auto manufacturers use hydraulic presses to fabricate large components such as body panels and smaller ones like brake pads. They also employ them in the production of other vehicle-related items like thermostat casings and light switches.

Another frequent assembly application of a hydraulic press is setting the heads on tank shells. This requires flaring and setting tools at both ends to maintain radial orientation of the two heads.

These machines rely on plant electricity, a servo motor/drive unit and hydraulic cylinder to move the press ram. They come in various pressures and sizes as "stand alone" pre-engineered units ready for part-specific tooling to be mounted onto the ram and platen.

Laboratory

Hydraulic presses are machines that utilize fluid pressure to generate force that can compress or mould materials. They're commonly employed in manufacturing and industrial settings.

Laboratory hydraulic presses are smaller versions of industrial hydraulic presses, often employed for research and testing purposes. Although they typically have a lower force capacity than their larger counterparts, laboratory hydraulic presses offer greater precision and control.

Hydraulic presses have many common laboratory uses, such as powder compaction, pharmaceutical development and spectroscopy. They may even be employed to produce KBr (potassium bromide) pellets for FTIR analysis or general sample pellets for XRF analysis.