ALTHOUGH hydroforming has become a relatively common manufacturing process in recent years, it formerly was reserved for high-volume parts because of the high price of entry-presses and dies don't come cheap. As tool designs have become more economical and development costs have dropped, this technology has spread to lower-volume applications with much success. The advantage of combining multipart, formed shapes into single components made with fewer process steps is a benefit that is hard to overlook. In the early days of its widespread use in the automotive industry, hydro-forming was an alternative process; components were converted from other processes to hydroforming. Eventually it earned a higher profile in the manufacturing industry when engineers began designing components specifically for the hydroforming process. As time went on, advances in finite element analysis (FEA) software and material databases made the process more predictable.
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