Pipe work (tube bending) is a method to bend tubes. It is usually carried out in a pipe and tube bender.
The intention of tube bending is to form a tube that fits a certain component or product. The machine, a pipe bender, puts the pipe in between a clamper and a die and presses until a bend is created. The bend can be a U-bend, an elbow bend, a two or three dimensional bend. Two dimensional bends are created in one plane, meanwhile a three dimensional bend is outside that plane, which means it is more complex.
There are several common techniques for bending pipes. Which type that is suitable depends on the component's requirements, the bend's radius and the pipe's dimensions and the material type. A common kind of bending is press bending. Then a press with a die pushes against the pipe, forming a bend. Press bending is primarily common when the pipe's cross section does not have to be identical for every component. Another kind of pipe bending is done in a rotary draw bender, which uses dies with a constant radius. Instead the bend is determined by how close the tools move towards one another. A third kind of bending, heat-induction, is for large pipes. Before bending large pipes, the section that is to be bent is heated before the bending process begins. In addition to these methods, there are some less common ways to bend pipes.
Often the bending creates irregular shapes of the cross section. This can be prevented by filling the pipe with sand or a powerful spring, which prevents the deformation.
