Bellows are commonly used in manufacturing units across industries to protect machinery and equipment. They are made of flexible yet durable types of rubber materials such as EPDM. This helps protect the equipment from any damage, vibration, spillage, water, and more as the rubber material bellows are designed to resist it all. While there are standard industrial bellows of different shapes and sizes, most manufacturers and OEMs prefer to customize industrial bellows to get the exact fitment. Custom bellows definitely have their own advantages. This post discusses industrial bellows customization factors and more.
Factors to Consider When Customizing Industrial Bellows
While these factors are largely from the point of view of engineers catering to machine design and dimensions, a business owner buying these bellows must have this information. This would help avoid errors and misses when sharing requirements. Also, it becomes easy for a design engineer to customize industrial bellows when OEMs have the required clarity about it. Here are a few pointers which may be useful.
- The material of bellows matters a lot in terms of its physical and chemical properties, and if it can withstand harsh operating environments in most manufacturing units. In that sense, rubber is the most widely used material because of its flexibility, durability, and resistance to heat, moisture, vibration, UV light, ozone, and so on.
- Various types of rubber and plastic materials are used to customize industrial bellows, such as aluminized Kevlar, polyurethane coated nylon, polyurethane, polyurethane coated polyester, Neoprene coated nylon, silicone fiberglass cloth, pre-oxidized Kevlar, polyurethane coated Nomex, PVC coated polyester, and so on. All of these materials possess varying physical and chemical properties such as temperature and vibration resistance, bending ability, abrasion and oil resistance, and more. It is essential to weigh these against your operating environment, which will ease the material selection process.
- As mentioned, you can customize industrial bellows in various shapes and sizes such as square, round, hexagonal, tapered, and more. It is essential to provide the exact dimensions of your machine or equipment. Here, the inner as well as outer lengths, breadths or diameters, depending on the shape, are essential.
- When operating, machines may expand, heat up, contract, and so on. This movement and the extending outer dimension also needs to be considered. Also, there may be parts and joints moving in a linear or rotational manner. This movement may cause friction and wear if the bellows do not meet the size and flexibility requirements. So, keeping the right difference between minimum and maximum lengths and breadths is crucial to get the right fitment.
- As mentioned, bellows may expand and contract as the part of machine movement and heat generation. They may trap air in this process and once contracted create a vacuum. To prevent this, it is essential to facilitate air exchange in the design.
If you are an OEM looking for bellows for your machines and equipment, opt for customized industrial bellows. Nabell USA Corp is a well-known player making customized industrial bellows and way covers which are applicable across industrial applications. The company has several years of market presence and hence the privilege of catering to diverse industrial requirements. Hence, they can customize industrial bellows of any type and complexity.
For any further information, you can contact their team via phone or email.
