Benefits of Hydraulic Port Welding

If you haven’t evaluated Image’s port welding processes for your cylinder manufacturing operation, you may be leaving money on the table.

Hydraulic cylinders can be manufactured in virtually any size or dimension to suit your project. In many situations, especially when the pressure inside the cylinder is particularly high, the joint between the cylinder and the port can fail, causing leaks, loss of performance or even destruction of the system itself.

All hydraulic cylinders have ports the ports are integral to the cylinder and are put in in the manufacturing process. This method has many benefits over other connection processes:

1. It is speedy Each port weld takes less than one second to complete, so there are no unnecessary delays in the system manufacturing process. Many Companies achieve throughput of 400 cylinders per day in a single stud weld port manufacturing line.

2. There is little or no tube distortion Working on a tube always poses the possibility of "egging", which can then require additional processing to "re-round" the cylinder. There is no pressure in any type of port manufacturing operation all distortion is due to heat. Conventional port welding may have arc time of 30-60 seconds vs 0.75 seconds for stud welding. This reduced time means less heat input into the tube which means less distortion.

3. It reduces or eliminates leaks The stud weld attaches the full face of the port base to the surface of the cylinder. With other types of port welding, just the circumference of the port is attached to the cylinder, not the full base, so there is opportunity for pin holes or joint failure anywhere along that perimeter. With the stud weld, no leaks means a better manufacturing throughput, better cylinder performance and a longer cylinder life

4. It accommodates thinner tube walls

The speed of the arc time of the stud weld port can allow for thinner cylinder walls. Less steel in the cylinders means less raw material cost, so these manufacturers can save significant amount of dollars a year just by changing the welding process they use to attach ports to their hydraulic cylinders. Additionally, less steel in the cylinders means less weight and better fuel economy in moving vehicles which is better for the end customer.

5. No additional fitting required.

Frequently, cylinders are manufactured with NPT ports. The end user must then add a JIC/ORFS/ORB fitting to the NPT port. Then there is the trouble of sealing while trying to align the fitting with engineering’s intent. Image Industries manufactures stud weld ports that can be made for any desired fitting and angle, so additional fittings are not required.

Stud weld ports for hydraulic cylinders provide the speed, quality, reliability and cost savings needed by today's heavy and light machinery manufacturers.

Contact Image Industries today to learn more about the advantages of hydraulic port welding or request a quote.