A sylphon is an old name for a cylindrically symmetrical

metal bellows Metal bellows are elastic vessels that can be compressed when pressure is applied to the outside of the vessel, or extended under vacuum. When the pressure or vacuum is released, the bellows will return to its original shape, provided the material ...

. When made of metal, the sylphon shape was formerly created by

metal spinning Metal spinning, also known as spin forming or spinning or metal turning most commonly, is a metalworking process by which a disc or tube of metal is rotated at high speed and formed into an axially symmetric part. Spinning can be performed by ha ...

onto a metal mandrel (model), and now by hydrostatic forming within a mold. Because the mold contains the convolutions of the bellows, the mold must be constructed in parts so that it can be disassembled when the forming process is complete. Experimental physicist John Strong makes occasional use of the term sylphon in his book ''Procedures in Experimental Physics''. A sylphon, or bellows, is used, among other purposes, to transfer motion through the wall of a vacuum chamber. It can be used as a squeeze piston for simple pumps. It can also be used as a flexible coupling to transfer rotary motion between shafts. The sylphon was invented in the early 1900s by meteorologist Weston Fulton (1871–1946), who named it for the

sylph A sylph (also called sylphid) is an air spirit stemming from the 16th-century works of Paracelsus, who describes sylphs as (invisible) beings of the air, his elementals of air. A significant number of subsequent literary and occult works have be ...

s of Western mythology.Jack Neely,
Miracle on Third Creek
" ''Metro Pulse'', 5 October 2000. Retrieved: 30 September 2011. Also, a trade name used by Johnson Controls for pneumatically operated valves and damper actuators utilizing a metal bellows, they were rendered obsolete in the 1930s and 40s.

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