There are two main types of bellows such as formed bellows and welded bellows. Welded metal bellows find it’s use in varied forms in different industries. Bellows are manufactured with systematic planning, product design, maintaining quality standards coupled with finite element and metallurgical analysis besides functional test and thermal tests. These welded metal bellows perform under stressful environment such as high pressure and extreme temperature. This characteristic helps metal bellows to act as temperature transducer.
Uses of metal bellows
Metal bellows and bellows valve have wide range of applications and benefits. First of, they are corrosion resistant, heat and pressure resistant, they enhance product longevity, ensure cleanliness at the work place, offers much sought flexibility, come with better sealing performance and last they are compatible to extreme environment conditions including salt spray, high humidity as well as corrosive fluids.
Different types of bellows and bellow products
Some of the bellow products include accumulators, surge arrestors, reservoirs which are used in fluid management technologies. These welded bellows differ in function but still come with similar construction.
Each of these bellow components consist of an outer containment, internal bellows separator and ports either in one side or in both sides depending upon application. The bellows act as separator that is welded on one end of the containment. The other end of the bellow is closed and it slides through containment as the bellows contracts and expands with the fluid system. Depending upon the need and the application, the fluid can be either inside the bellows or even outside like between the bellows and the containment
Some welded bellows act as temperature sensors, pressure sensors, aneroid sensors and also transducers such as military temperature transducer and aerospace temperature transducer. Depending upon application, the metal bellows are used and they can function as valve seals, vibration dampeners and pressure and temperature sensors. In case of pressure transducers two small bellows are generally joined with a capillary tube.
The gas-filled bellows are used in air density controls, fuel controls and in pressure chamber. It is the liquid filled bellows that find wide application in the field of transducers such as temperature-motion transducer, temperature-force transducer, motion-motion transducer and many more.
These transducers act to transform one form of energy into another and it is the welded metal bellows that actually aid in the altitude sensing system, cockpit cooling system and thermal control for optical application system.
Bellows and related products find their usage in industries such as aerospace, oil, gas and chemical, military and defense, electrical transmission and distribution and devices in research and scientific laboratories besides finding wide industrial applications.