What Is a Barbed Hose Fitting, and How Does It Work?
A barbed hose fitting is a tiny component that plays a big role in hosing and tubing systems. Everything from multimillion dollar industrial operations to the tubing on drink dispensers needs barbed hose fittings to function properly. Read on to learn more about barbed hose fittings, including brass barbed fittings, and how they’re best used for industrial applications in San Jose, CA.
What is a barbed hose fitting?
A barbed hose fitting is a component that makes a connection between tubing materials. The hose barbs themselves are essentially bumps and ridges on a fitting that grip the inside of a tube or hose and make a sealed connection. There are many different shapes and sizes of hose barbs, and several qualities contribute to a fitting’s ability to make a tight seal with a hose, including slope, depth, number and spacing of the barbs.
How do you select the right fitting for your needs?
There are a number of considerations to take into account as you select the right barbed hose fitting for industrial applications in San Jose, CA, but they all center around the type of hosing or tubing you use. Pay attention to the internal diameter of the tube, the flexibility of the material and how you’ll be using the hose. In most cases, you’ll be using a rubber hose or plastic tubing, and they offer different levels of flexibility. As a general rule, if you’re using soft and flexible tubing, a barbed hose fitting is essential.
Is metal or plastic a better option?
If you’re using tubing for extremely high-pressure industrial applications, like handling potentially dangerous chemicals or compounds, or you’re working in a rough environment, a metal fitting is the best option due to its strength and durability. Keep in mind that the production of metal fittings, including ones made of brass, sometimes includes a plating layer over the metal fitting that can dull the grip and reduce the tightness of the seal.
While plastic fittings generally don’t hold up to pressure as well as their metal counterparts, they sometimes can make a better seal on tubing and can hold pressure better. They can be precisely molded with no radius, making the seal tighter. Since they’re made of flexible material, their barbs won’t be too sharp that they end up cutting the tube. As an added bonus, plastic fittings usually cost much less than metal.
If you choose plastic for your applications, it’s best to choose an option that has parting-line-free hose barbs. A parting line is a seam that produces a slight imperfection in plastic parts where two halves of the molds meet. Parting-line-free hose barbs are made with advanced molding technologies that eliminate the seam and create a smooth, uniform surface on the barb that creates a tighter seal.
Selecting the right barbed hose fittings can impact operations at your San Jose, CA business. Contact the team at Royal Brass Incorporated today to learn more about barbed hose fittings and tubing for your company and any typical applications for which you need materials.
Categorised in: Tube Fittings