2024 SMB Exhibitions
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Modern weapons systems impose greater demands on system hydraulics compared to previous generations. With harsher operating environments, more stringent performance expectations, and heightened requirements for reliability and maintainability, the challenges have significantly increased. Senior Metal Bellows (SMB) emerges with solutions that continue to exceed these ever-evolving demands.
SMB was enlisted to address these challenges for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter on behalf of our Aerospace OEMs. These clients sought hydraulic components capable of delivering flawless performance under harsh operating conditions, including intense aircraft vibrations and extreme temperature variations—while also ensuring reliability and meeting stringent performance standards.
Senior Metal Bellows’ maintenance-free accumulators and reservoirs feature edge-welded metal bellows that create a leak-tight chamber, separating hydraulic fluid from the gas precharge. This chamber adapts to flow demands during operation and hydraulic shutdown, ensuring leak-free performance with no maintenance or recharging is needed throughout the aircraft’s life. The pressure vessels provide an ideal strength-to-weight ratio, while the bellows ensure smooth motion and durability.
Maintenance-Free: The all-metal, welded hermetic design prevents gas migration into the hydraulic fluid, eliminating the need for charging lines, valves, or access panels. SMB’s bellows, accumulators, and reservoirs contain no elastomeric seals or wear surfaces, ensuring they last the lifetime of the aircraft without requiring refurbishment, recharging, or replacement.
Weight-Optimized Design: To minimize fuel costs, our accumulators and reservoirs can be manufactured from a variety of high strength alloys that allows for a lightweight design.
Lifetime Helium or Nitrogen Pre-charge: SMB’s all-metal construction permanently seals the pre-charge gas, allowing the use of helium, which offers superior compressibility and thermodynamic properties compared to nitrogen in most cases. Under conditions where the properties of helium do not provide benefit over nitrogen, SMB will use a nitrogen pre-charge to ensure optimal envelop is achieved.
Temperature Resistant: The bellows, accumulators, and reservoirs remain unaffected by temperature extremes and are compatible with all hydraulic system fluids.
These innovative designs make SMB’s accumulators and reservoirs the perfect solution for the F-35’s stringent hydraulic performance and reliability needs. Offering zero leakage, high performance, and long life, they are well-suited for military and commercial applications.