Pneumatic World, Pneumatic China

Pneumatic cylinders are used since the time that the steam engines became popular in the 19th century. The start was in England during the industrial revolution. The most common used were cylinders with a steel tube and tie rods. The end covers, front and back  is die-casting steel. The piston in a standard round steel. Everybody made his own type, diameter and version. Can be single acting with a spring or double acting.
The common used  dimensions in Inches.
That is why the inside diameters of the ¡°today¡± cylinders are still subtracted from the Inch dimension. The following dimensions are used by everybody 16, 20, 25, 32, 40, 50, 63, 80, 100 and 125. It looks strange but it is all coming from the period of time.
After 1945 the industry started to work more and more with dimension standards so the machine parts are interchangeable.  In Europe the French CETOP was one of the first the make a standard for pneumatic cylinders. For example RP52. At that time most of the leading manufacturers had their own cylinders with own dimensions. So the cylinder of Martonair (SM900 series), Festo, Parker,  SMC and Pneumax had cylinders only fo mounting with parts of that manufacturer.
Most of these dimension were adapted by the later, around 1986) ISO standard 6432 (for micro cylinders) and 6431 for bigger cylinders.
Around 1992 the German machine builders association VDMA also put their name with number 24652 on it. This brings a big advantage for the mounting parts of the cylinders, because they can all be the same. The rod clevis, mounting clevis, float joint and  mounting flanges are the same. There are even companies, like Nisolio Resmini, that only manufacture mounting parts for ISO cylinders.
In 2004 the ISO commission renewed the standard for pneumatic cylinder and called it ISO 15552.
Mostly the cylinders are build with aluminum profile extruded tubes.
And the end covers are from aluminum pressofusione die-casting. Because of low labour costs these cylinder parts are mostly produced in China even by big brands like Cammozi, SMC, Pneumax and others.

Pneumatic valves are used since the time that the steam engines became popular in the 19th century. The start was in England during the industrial revolution. They are needed to let the pneumatic cylinder do their function. The first types produced were the hand actuated valves. In the mainland of Europe pneumatic valves have been used a lot in the mining industry. In for example coal mines pneumatic jack hammers hammered out the coal from the mine shafts. Big valves from die casted steel with G1¡±size were popular in that industry. Especially the development of smaller coils with lower wattage have been important for the pneumatic industry. Without this a good communication between the high tech control systems would not have been possible. And after the year 2000 BUS systems became very important and an agreement between the leading electronic companies and the pneumatic industry has made the road clear for these products.

Pneumatic fittings were needed ever since people wanted to connect pneumatic components . In the beginning the transportation from the compressed air was made by copper piping, like for the steam engines. The fittings had a compression ring. Later Nylon tubes have been developed and use with the same compression ring fittings. For this plastic tube the more simple push-on fittings also can be used, and these fittings can also be manufactured in plastic. In the 1980¡¯s the French company Legris succeeded in producing and marketing the push-in fittings. They set up a complete range a good quality fittings that had a self/locking system for the tube. Legris has been market leader in these fittings for many years. Some big pneumatic companies took their product into their own program like Norgren, some developed their own line of push-in fittings and some waited a long time with this product like Festo. Festo was holding on to the push-on fittings for a long time and finally made a private label deal with a Japanese company. Later some Taiwanese and Korean companies started manufacturing these products like CDC and Sang-A, they also concurred a nice market share. After 2003 production started in China after a Korean brand started production in Cixi. The quality level from these push-in fittings from China is high enough for the international market.

The development of the pneumatic industry and their brands

The company Martonair (Norgren) was the first to produce a real range of pneumatic components for commercial use in Europe.  Martonair was founded in England in the town of Marton just after the second world war and was market leader in Europe for a long time. The German rival Festo took over this position in the nineties. This company is located in the heart of the German industry, the black forest area with the big player Mercedes Benz around the corner. Festo has its origin in the popular wood working industry that was leading in Europe. Festo still has another product line especially for wood working called Festool, this department has handtools and sawing machines. In the eighties every European country had their own pneumatic factories. Even France was very strong with brands such as CPOAC, Joucomatic . Proud French products but they could not make it against the bigger International brands. Also Sweden had some big brands, Atlas Copco and Mecman. Mecman was bought by Rexroth and Atlas Copco Pneumatics by Parker. Italy became stronger in pneumatics step by step. Because of 2 reasons: first is the good development of the Italian machine producers en secondly because the South German pneumatic companies and machine builders started in the 1970¡¯s to let  components be produced in the low-wages country Italy. In the start the Italian pneumatic companies only produced 1 product group, for example Cammozzi and Metalwork did not manufacture Cylinders and valves at the start. Univer was solely developing valves and Pneumax was strong in Cylinders and valves.
Strangely enough a country like Spain never brought a European Pneumatic brand, Spain is also a strong country in the machine industry and as good brands in the petrol chemical valves but no pneumatics. Even a small country like The Netherlands had an own pneumatic brand: Sempress pneumatics, this company also was bought by the American Parker company.
This company from the US is known for expansion by acquisition they have bought maybe
Pneumatic companies even big brands like Legris from France and Origa from Germany.
The American market has a different structure as the European pneumatic market . Originally the manufactures only produced 1 product group. For example the old brands Ross, Mac and Numatics only produced valves. Bimba and Tol-o-matic only Cylinders. And the American brands did not do a lot of business in Europe. The same counts for Japanese brand with only 1 big exeption: SMC. SMC from Japan is the biggest world-wide producer of pneumatics, they are strong in the European and American market. The strategy was long-term and well thought. SMC developed products not only for their home market Japan but also especially for the USA and Europe.

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