How Tube Adapters Simplify Fitting Alignment and Installation
Learn how Swagelok® tube adapters can simplify installation, eliminate difficult fitting alignment challenges, and help reduce inventory requirements. This video demonstrates how tube adapters provide orientation flexibility when installing fittings such as elbows while maintaining a reliable, leak-tight seal. You'll also learn about common tube adapter configurations, end connection options, and proper installation techniques for Swagelok tube fitting systems.
Video Transcript
Today, we want to talk about tube fittings that are designed to make your job easier: tube adapters. Tube adapters can help eliminate difficult alignment positions and help reduce inventory.
Let's say, for instance, you wanted to install a male elbow. As you're installing that male elbow, inevitably, it's going to point in the wrong direction. You can eliminate that with a tube adapter. A tube adapter is a fitting that is designed with a tube stub on one end and a different fitting on the other—in this case, a male NPT.
Tube adapters are made from solid bar stock. Therefore, we need to actually cut a notch into the tube adapter end to allow for the ferrules to drop into place. As a result, tube adapters are designed to be used with only Swagelok tube fittings. The way you install a tube adapter is that you install the fitting away from the tube adapter first—in this case, a male NPT. You can tighten that down as tight as you need to make that. Then, you install the Swagelok tube fitting end next—in this case, a half-inch elbow. I can orient this in whatever orientation I want, and because it's a half-inch elbow, the pull-up instructions are one and one-quarter turns past finger-tight.
Tube adapters come in multiple sizes and multiple end connections: male NPT, female NPT, straight thread, pipe fitting, even AN fitting, as well as hose barb end connections.
Tube adapters: tube fittings that are designed to make your job easier.
