Why use Thermoplastic hose?
Thermoplastic hose Dubai.
Modern hydraulic hoses need to handle environment stress and extreme temperatures in order to increase safety and reduce premature failure of the hose. One variety of hose is slowly gaining precedence over the traditional rubber hydraulic hoses. The Thermoplastic kind.
Thermoplastic material in hoses, offer a number of added value over traditional rubber hoses. Thermoplastic material is re-melted as a part of the production process thus encouraging a chemical and mechanical bonding resulting in a high level of contact strength between the core, braid and jacket layers.
Thermoplastic hoses can handle tough environmental conditions and high temperatures that would normally cause break down in rubber hydraulic hoses, thus reducing safety risks, avoiding hose failure and moreover saving down time and additional costs due to on-site job repairs and clean ups.
Thermoplastic hoses and rubber hoses. How do they compare?
- Thermoplastic hoses are designed to handle extremely low even freezing temperatures, whereas rubber hoses may crack from embrittlement due to low temperatures
- Thermoplastic hoses reinforced with fibre bonded between the jacket and the hose can handle constant flexing at high temperatures while Rubber hoses experiences fatigue due to constant flexing motion in several applications.
- Thermoplastic hoses offer very good resistance to chemicals and corrosion.
- Thermoplastic hoses can be formed for easy and convenient routing
Thermoplastic hose deconstructed
Inner tube
The core is designed with cleanliness and safety as primary concerns. The core is resistant to erosion and maintains trouble free and long term cleanliness of the hydraulic system, with a mandrel free construction that eliminates lubricant contamination. With fibre reinforced thermoplastic hoses, cutting does not cause contamination as these do not require to be cut by a saw. Some Thermoplastic hoses are also non-conductive for ensuring the safety of the equipment operator from an electric shock.
Outer layer
Most good quality thermoplastic hoses are made of a ozone and UV resistant cover that resists cracking and UV damage thus extending the active service life of the hose. A thermoplastic hose jacket will not delaminate avoiding jacket failure and resultant wire fatigue. Special applications can be catered to by special jacketed thermoplastic hoses with additional resistance to flexing and to suit the environmental conditions.
Small bore
Unlike rubber hoses thermoplastic hoses manufacture, does not require a mandrel for support of the core tube, hence these can be made of a very small inner diameter as small as 1.3mm. This can be crucial where only the fluid to be transferred is very small. This also allows for a smaller and tighter bend radius, typically less than half of conventional SAE 100R2 and 100R1 hoses.
Compact outer layer
Compared to rubber hoses, thermoplastic hoses require the use of lesser material due to the inherent strength of the materials and hence the outer diameter can be 20% smaller than those of rubber hoses. This quality is extremely beneficial in applications where the space is limited and several hoses need to fit in a comparatively small area, for e.g. in mobile equipment.
Really long lengths
The very process of manufacturing of thermoplastic hose ensures long and continuous lengths of hoses due to the self-supporting inner core tube without the need of a mandrel and the material is cured on the line itself. This means fewer leak points, less wastages, and minimized changeover of reels at production.
Lighter Weight
Due to the material and the construction of Thermoplastic hoses, they are 40% lighter than rubber hoses of comparable specifications and in certain cases low pressure rubber lines can be replaced with thermoplastic hose with a reduction of weight by as much as 70%.
Formed Thermoplastic hose
For some custom applications, thermoplastic hoses are thermally formed into tailor made shapes to cater to unique client requests for specific shaped hoses, that fit snugly enabling compact routing, quicker installation and low wastage. Rigid yet flexible, these custom formed hoses can be stored in small boxes and hence reduce storage space and shipping costs. Once formed these hoses retains its shape and can be routed through compact difficult-to-reach areas, with fewer connecting points getting rid of hose-tube combinations.
Bonded hose
Instead of using multiple hoses, one bonded hose element can be used, with several advantages-lower costs, quicker installations, and lower weight of the bonded hose. Other benefits are elimination of tangling in multiple hose environment and abrasion caused by rubbing of hoses against each other. Bonded hoses are more manageable and overall strength of the hose element is also increased reducing hose failure in challenging environments, particularly in mobile machinery equipment like lift trucks, cranes etc. Bonded hoses may be permanent, strippable or skip bond and individual hose elements can be separated if needed for routing purposes.
Advantages of using a thermoplastic hose
Resistance to abrasion
The inherent strengths of thermoplastic hose materials makes it highly resistant to abrasion and in fact used as covers for rubber hoses to increase abrasion resistance. Thermoplastic hoses may be five times more resistant to rubber hoses
Reduced contamination levels.
Due to the nature of manufacturing of thermoplastic hose as compared to rubber hoses, contamination levels in a thermoplastic hose is much lower than rubber hoses. Rubber hose may need flushing and thorough cleaning prior to use for production.
Resistance to permeation
The permeation resistance of thermoplastic hoses with the use of various thermoplastic is much more than rubber hoses against gases like Oxygen, Carbon dioxide and Nitrogen.
Working pressure
Thermoplastic hoses can endure high working pressures upto 58000 psi (4000 bar) with the use of different reinforcement methods.
Noise reduction
To counter environment noise pollution and enhance operator comfort, special reinforcement on thermoplastic hose can reduce noise on machines to a high degree.
Shelf life
Rubber hoses (as per SAE J517) can be stored in optimal conditions for ten years prior to use, however under the same conditions thermoplastic hoses and tubes can be stored for an unlimited time prior to first use.
Contact Inflex Hydraulics here for your specific thermoplastic hose requirements.
For more reading on thermoplastic hoses go here.