Compression fittings must be used with hard or semi-rigid tubing. Soft tubing is too soft to create a good seal with compression fittings. Barbed fittings have to be used with soft, flexible tubing. Using hard tubing with barbs will cause longitudinal stress cracks in the tubing.
Hard tubing includes Nylon, Polypropylene, HDPE, LDPE, LLDPE, Kynar, and Chemflour. Soft tubing includes flexible PVC (vinyl), silicone, most Tygon tubing, polyurethane, and latex.
There is an insert available for the Jaco and Parker Fast & Tite tube fittings that you can insert into some of the soft tubing, which will make it rigid enough to use with the compression fittings. When a barbed fitting is used for an application that involves pressure, a clamp must be used to clamp the tubing to the fitting.
Title: What tubing do I use with compression fittings and what tubing do I use with barbed fittings?
Description: General infortmation on the use of barbed and compression style fittings.
Published: 10/25/2007
Last Edited: 1/20/2023
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