Benefits — Mechanical

METAL PROPERTIES: Flowforming is a cold working process which, through its strain hardening of the base metal substantially increases Yield and Tensile Strengths of the formed material.

Certain customers choose to take advantage of the improvement in mechanical properties by effectively designing thinner walls for lighter components. Others prefer post-forming stress-relieving or solution annealing of the flowformed component to remove residual stresses. In other cases, the flowformed component will be heat treated or aged to alter the levels of achieved strength, hardness and ductility into specification requirements.

SEAMLESS: One major benefit offered by flowforming is its seamless construction. Quite often, we are also able to integrate more than one previously separate component into the same seamless flowformed structure.

SAVINGS: A seamless component will eliminate manufacturing problems associated with welding, such as heat-affected zones, part distortion, weld porosity and failures, as well as the inherent costs of the weld, its radiography and general testing. Elimination of all the above should be factored in the cost savings when comparing utilization of a seamless flowformed component.