Stainless and Alloy Pipe Bending
Stainless, duplex, Hastelloy, titanium and nickel-bearing alloys, bent without wrecking the metallurgy.
Alloy work is a metallurgy problem before it is a bending problem
American Pipe Bending shapes virtually all materials: stainless steel, carbon steel, copper, brass, aluminum, chrome, titanium, Hastelloy, Alloy 6XN, 2205 duplex and nickel-bearing alloys.
The reason alloys are a separate conversation is that the bend is not the hard part. Duplex stainless loses its phase balance if it sits too long in the wrong temperature range. Titanium picks up oxygen and nitrogen when it is hot and goes brittle. Austenitic stainless can sensitise, and then it corrodes at the grain boundaries in exactly the service it was specified for.
None of that shows up on a dimensional inspection. It shows up in a corrosion test or, worse, in service. So the answer is to settle the material, the temperature limits and the post-bend requirements before the first pass, rather than to bend it and test afterwards.
Request a quoteHow the process choice changes with the material
Cold bending puts no heat into the material at all, which removes the whole question. Where the size and radius allow it, that is often the cleanest answer on a sensitive alloy, and the fourteen cold machines here cover a wide range of sizes.
Where the section is too big or too heavy to move cold, induction bending applies heat to a narrow band and then cools it in a controlled way, which is the entire point of the controlled cooling step. Air or water spray, chosen for the material, holds the band at the right cooling rate and keeps the metallurgy inside the window.
Either way, a solution anneal or a stress relief may be part of the specification rather than an option. In-plant stress relieving here means that step does not add a shipping leg.
What to send with an alloy enquiry
Send the full material designation, not just the family. 316 and 316L behave differently. 2205 and 2507 behave differently. The grade decides the temperature window, and the window decides the process.
Send the post-bend requirements too: any required heat treatment, the acceptance criteria for corrosion testing, ferrite number limits on duplex, and whether positive material identification is required on the finished part. PMI is on the list of tests we can run.
Materials we bend
What to send, and what it costs to leave out
Five numbers describe a bend: outside diameter, wall thickness, centerline radius, bend angle and the tangent length on each end. Add the material, the quantity and the code and the job can be priced. The quote form takes a drawing up to 25 MB in PDF, DWG, DXF, JPG or PNG, and a photograph of a marked-up print is fine.
The things most often left out are the ones that change the price most. Documentation is the first: material test reports, non-destructive testing and heat treatment all have to be priced and scheduled from the start, and retrofitting a package onto a finished bend is slow and sometimes impossible. The delivery date is the second, because it decides whether the job is possible rather than what it costs.
The third is the acceptance criteria. Wall thinning on the outside of the arc and ovality through it are the two numbers a reviewer checks first. Tell us the limits and we will confirm the tightest radius that holds them before anything is cut. Finding the boundary at quote stage costs nothing; finding it at first article costs a length of pipe and a week.
Where a drawing calls out a bend that cannot be made as dimensioned, you will hear about it at quote stage rather than at delivery. That happens more often than it should, usually because an isometric was drawn without a bend schedule and the radius was never checked against the wall. Working back from an isometric to the five numbers each bend needs is routine here, and it normally catches at least one dimension that does not close.
Testing we can provide
Per your bending specification, not ours. Tell us the code and the acceptance criteria and we will say what runs here and what is subcontracted.
Other ways we bend
Wall thickness, radius, material and schedule decide the method. If you are not sure which fits, send the drawing and we will tell you.
Heat Induction Bending
Cojafex induction bending up through 42″ O.D. and 4″ wall, in any radius, angle or plane.
Coiling
Helical, spiral wound and serpentine coils, cold, up through 10″ pipe.
Cold Bending
Rotary draw bending on fourteen machines, with mandrels and wiper shoes where the radius needs them.
Mandrel Bending
Ball mandrels and wiper shoes for tight radii and thin walls that would otherwise collapse.
Large Diameter Pipe Bending
The work most shops turn away: up to 42 inch outside diameter and 4 inch wall.
Custom Pipe Fabrication
Cutting, end prep and fabrication around the bend, so one purchase order covers the package.
Have a drawing? Send it over.
Send a drawing or a sketch and our team will get back to you with a quote.