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| hydraulic press | |
|---|---|
| Name | Hydraulic press |
| Invented | 1795 |
| Inventor | Joseph Bramah |
| Type | Machine tool |
| Applications | Metal forming, molding, compression testing |
hydraulic press A hydraulic press is a machine tool that uses liquid incompressibility to amplify force. It employs a hydraulic cylinder and pump assembly to transmit pressure through a fluid to perform tasks such as forging, stamping, molding and laboratory compression testing. Widely used across manufacturing, construction, automotive and aerospace sectors, the device links to developments in industrialization, metallurgy and workshop automation.
The hydraulic press emerged during the Industrial Revolution alongside innovators and institutions such as Joseph Bramah, James Watt, Richard Arkwright, Samuel Crompton and Matthew Boulton. It relies on Pascalian principles formalized after experiments by Blaise Pascal and later commercialized during the era of Manchester and Birmingham engineering. Prominent manufacturers and adopters include firms in Essen, Manchester, Sheffield, Detroit and Nagoya, and the press influenced factories associated with Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Siemens, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Toshiba.
A hydraulic press converts mechanical energy from engines, motors or hand pumps into hydraulic energy using components developed by pioneers such as George Stephenson, Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Nikola Tesla. Core elements derive from technologies standardized by organizations like American Society of Mechanical Engineers, British Standards Institution, Deutsche Institut für Normung and International Organization for Standardization. Typical designs pair a master cylinder and slave cylinder connected through hoses and valves designed by firms such as Bosch, Parker Hannifin, Eaton and Parker. Control systems may integrate sensors from Honeywell, Siemens AG, Rockwell Automation or Schneider Electric and programmable logic controllers pioneered by Allen-Bradley. Materials for construction often come from supply chains involving foundries in Pittsburgh, Kalamazoo, Osaka and Stuttgart.
Variants include C-frame presses common in workshops of Sheffield and Coventry; H-frame presses used by Boeing, Airbus and Rolls-Royce in aerospace fabrication; gantry presses employed by Caterpillar and Komatsu for heavy construction components; and two-platen presses favored by Toyota, Hyundai and Volkswagen for high-volume stamping. Specialized forms include cold-forming presses used by ArcelorMittal and Nippon Steel, deep-draw presses used in plants run by Nissan and Mazda, laboratory compression presses used in research at MIT, Stanford University and Imperial College London, and hydroforming systems developed by BMW and Audi. Other variants include tandem presses, servo-hydraulic presses advanced by Siemens and Mitsubishi Electric, and portable jacks supplied by Stanley and Black & Decker.
Hydraulic presses serve in sheet metal stamping at factories of Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Honda, Volkswagen Group and Renault; in forging operations for Rolls-Royce Holdings, GE Aviation and Pratt & Whitney; in composite molding used by Boeing and Bombardier; in automotive repair shops associated with franchises like Monroe and Midas; and in civil engineering projects overseen by Bechtel, Fluor Corporation and Skanska. They enable cold extrusion for suppliers to Siemens Healthineers, Philips and General Electric, and are used for material testing in laboratories at NASA, European Space Agency, CERN, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories.
Safe operation references standards from Occupational Safety and Health Administration, European Commission, Health and Safety Executive and International Labour Organization. Guards and interlocks often comply with directives from National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and guidance from Underwriters Laboratories. Training programs come from institutions like TÜV Rheinland, American Welding Society and Association for Manufacturing Technology. Typical hazards addressed through procedures include crush injuries, hydraulic fluid injection incidents and pinch points; emergency systems may involve products from Schneider Electric, Eaton Corporation and ABB.
Maintenance regimes follow manuals informed by practices of ISO committees and aftermarket service providers such as SKF, Timken, Honeywell and Bosch Rexroth. Routine tasks include fluid analysis referencing techniques used at laboratories at Bureau Veritas and Intertek, seal replacement using parts from Parker Hannifin and Freudenberg, and pump overhauls employing units by Vickers and Rexroth. Troubleshooting often consults technical bulletins from equipment builders such as Dillon Engineering and maintenance training by National Institute for Metalworking Skills.
The press was invented by Joseph Bramah and developed through contributions from engineers in cities like Birmingham and Manchester. Subsequent improvements drew on work by inventors and firms in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Leeds, and on machine tool advances by Henry Maudslay, James Nasmyth, Eli Whitney and Robert H. Thurston. The 20th century saw integration into mass production systems promoted by Henry Ford, Frederick Winslow Taylor and Alfred P. Sloan Jr., and later refinement through automation by George Devol, Joseph Engelberger and robotics companies such as Unimation and KUKA. Modern computational design and finite element analysis work at institutions like MIT, Caltech, ETH Zurich and Delft University of Technology continues to shape press geometry, while standards and safety practices have been formalized by ISO, ANSI and ANSI/ASME committees.
Category:Machine tools