Stainless steel bellows, or metal bellows as some people call them, are mainly used by engineers because of the pressure they can withstand and how they can seal many applications. In fact, there are many engineers who think of stainless steel bellows as generic items whereas you only need to specify a few key dimensions and then choose the metal alloy right for your application and you are good to go. If you want to know more about stainless steel bellows and the different types of them, keep reading.
Seam Welded Formed Bellows
Seam welded formed bellows are an excellent choice when it comes to keeping the cost down for them. This type of stainless steel bellows or standard bellows can adapt to any required length and are produced from rolled, formed, and welded sheet metal. These types of bellows can be as thick as eight inches in diameter. The seam-welded multi-ply bellows are used for the applications that require a large but lower cost bellows. These include something like an exhaust pipe connector or any other application that is used for the connecting of different things.
Edge Welded Bellows
Ever wonder what can bellows be made of? Well, the edge welded bellows are created using a stamping and welding process. So, because of this, you need to be an expert in welding. The first process is the stamping process which creates a set of diaphragms. These diaphragms come out ring-shaped. Then, you need to weld those ring-shaped diaphragms together along the inside and the outside diameter.
Because you will be welding them together along the outside and inner diameters of these ring-shaped diaphragms, this can get rather expensive. However, this cost could be well worth it if you are looking for one of the smallest packages of bellows. These types of bellows are most often used when cost is not much of a problem and size is at a premium.
Electro-Formed Bellows
When considering what is bellows used for, you might want to consider choosing the electro-formed bellows. The reason for this is because of a tight control of the wall thickness. These bellows are made from the deposition of nickel and then onto an aluminum mandrel. These bellows are not limited like the first two types of bellows mentioned previously. These bellows are also more compact and offer a size or even less than the welded bellows, 0.125 inches across.
The electro-formed bellows are mainly used in the aerospace and defense applications.
Did you know, the multi-ply bellows most often consist of two or three tubed but can also consist of more tubes such as five of them, depending on the application it is being used for? Not only this but when thinking of using metal or iron for bellows, think of how hot they get. In fact, iron ore has a melting point of 2,750 degrees Fahrenheit while metal has a melting point of 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit.