Steel tubes are widely used in hydraulic systems in many different industries. There are many different materials of hydraulic tubing, such as carbon steels, low alloy steels, stainless steels, nickel alloys and so on. Among the above materials, carbon steel hydraulic tubes are the most common. However, with its great advantages, stainless steel hydraulic tubing also plays very important role in the hydraulic systems in many industries such as chemical industry, oil and gas, marine industry, ship building, power plant, aircraft, mining, and so on.

High corrosion resistance
Stainless steel has a very good corrosion resistance performance than carbon steels and some low-alloy steels. Especially for applications under corrosion environments. The metal is unlikely to leach into the hydraulic oil, and compared to carbon steel hydraulic tubes, the metal contamination risk of hydraulic oil for stainless steel hydraulic tubing is nearly nonexistent.

Smoother outside and inside surface
Stainless steel hydraulic tubing has smooth outside and inside surface than carbon steel hydraulic tubes, especially for cold rolled stainless steel hydraulic tubing. The surfaces will not be rusted even after many years, this can reduce the maintenance costs. And due to the smoother inside surface, the flow resistance of the hydraulic oil or fluid in stainless steel hydraulic tubing is only 50% of the carbon steel hydraulic tubes. So using stainless steel hydraulic tubes can reduce the loss of pressure.

Smaller pipes 
The mass flow rate for stainless steel pipes is much higher per diameter than many other materials. This can save on the cost of the pipes without sacrificing flow rate.

Durable in use
Hydraulic tubing in stainless steel can act good performance for much longer time than carbon steel tubes. The tubes will look and act the same in more than 25 years as they do today.

Better elongation
As stainless steels (austentic stainless steel & duplex steel) have better elongation property than most carbons steels, hydraulic tubing of stainless steel is more suitable and easy for bending and Flaring processing, which is very common in build the hydraulic lines, and connect other hydraulic parts.

Better Hardness for connecting Bite type tube fittings
Usually the hardness of stainless steel hydraulic tubes is below HRB 85 (and hardness of some high quality hydraulic tubes is below HRB 80), such hardness ensures the connection of the bite type tube fittings to the hydraulic tubes tight and precision, which will reduce the risk of loosen and leaking.

How to get high quality stainless steel hydraulic tubing at reasonable prices?
There are many famous suppliers of stainless steel hydraulic tubing, such as Sandvik, Parker and Fine tubes. However, their prices are very high. Nowadays some of the Chinese manufactures can also produce very good quality stainless steel seamless pipes, many famous companies buy stainless steel seamless pipes from Chinese companies, these including some very famous companies such as Parker, Thyseen Krupp, HYDAC, ect. So it might be a good choice to buy from China.  

Although most of the Chinese manufactures of stainless steel seamless pipes can produce stainless steel hydraulic tubing, they might not be such professional. Younglee stainless steel pipes Co., Ltd (Younglee Metal Products Co., Ltd) is the professional manufacture of stainless steel hydraulic tubing and instrumentation tubing, about 50% sales of the company’s is hydraulic tubing, instrumentation tubing, precision tubes. It will be a good choice to buy stainless steel hydraulic tubing.

Article written by: Jeremy Lon, copy right @ Younglee Metal Products Co., Ltd.