piping Within industry, piping is a system of pipes used to convey fluids (liquids and gases) from one location to another. The engineering discipline of piping design studies the efficient transport of fluid. Industrial process piping (and accomp ...

and

plumbing Plumbing is any system that conveys fluids for a wide range of applications. Plumbing uses piping, pipes, valves, piping and plumbing fitting, plumbing fixtures, Storage tank, tanks, and other apparatuses to convey fluids. HVAC, Heating and co ...

, a coupling (or coupler) is a very short length of pipe or

tube Tube or tubes may refer to: * ''Tube'' (2003 film), a 2003 Korean film * "Tubes" (Peter Dale), performer on the Soccer AM television show * Tube (band), a Japanese rock band * Tube & Berger, the alias of dance/electronica producers Arndt Rör ...

, with a socket at one or both ends that allows two pipes or tubes to be joined, welded (

steel Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...

), brazed or soldered (

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

brass Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, in proportions which can be varied to achieve different colours and mechanical, electrical, acoustic and chemical properties, but copper typically has the larger proportion, generally copper and zinc. I ...

etc.) together. Alternatively it is a short length of pipe with two

female An organism's sex is female ( symbol: ♀) if it produces the ovum (egg cell), the type of gamete (sex cell) that fuses with the male gamete (sperm cell) during sexual reproduction. A female has larger gametes than a male. Females and ...

National pipe thread American National Standard Pipe Thread standards, often called national pipe thread standards for short, are United States national technical standards for screw threads used on threaded pipes and pipe fittings. They include both tapered and s ...

s (NPT) (in North American terms, a coupler is a double female while a nipple is double male) or two male or female

British standard pipe thread British Standard Pipe (BSP) is a set of technical standards for screw threads that has been adopted internationally for interconnecting and sealing piping, pipes and fittings by mating an external (Gender of connectors and fasteners, male) thread ...

s. If the two ends of a coupling are of different standards or joining methods, the coupling is called an adapter. Examples of adapters include one end BSP threaded with the other NPT threaded, and one end threaded with the other a plain socket for brazing. A coupling whose ends use the same connection method but are of different sizes is called a reducing coupling or reducer. An example is a 3/4" NPT to 1/2" NPT coupling.

External resources

PDF illustrating assorted adapters
Piping Plumbing {{engineering-stub

See also

Further reading

External resources