A tube is a soft squeezable container which can be used for thick liquids such as glue

Glue

This is a list of various types of glue. Historically, the term "glue" only referred to protein colloids prepared from animal flesh. The meaning has been extended to refer to any fluid adhesive....

 and toothpaste

Toothpaste

Toothpaste is a paste or gel dentifrice used with a toothbrush as an accessory to clean and maintain the aesthetics and health of teeth. Toothpaste is used to promote oral hygiene: it serves as an abrasive that aids in removing the dental plaque and food from the teeth, assists in suppressing...

. Basically, a tube is a cylindrical, hollow piece with a round or oval profile, made of plastic

Plastic

A plastic material is any of a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic organic solids used in the manufacture of industrial products. Plastics are typically polymers of high molecular mass, and may contain other substances to improve performance and/or reduce production costs...

, paperboard

Paperboard

Paperboard is a thick paper based material. While there is no rigid differentiation between paper and paperboard, paperboard is generally thicker than paper. According to ISO standards, paperboard is a paper with a basis weight above 224 g/m2, but there are exceptions. Paperboard can be single...

, or aluminum. Both ends of this tube are treated differently during the manufacturing process and filling. In general, on one end of the tube body there is a round orifice, which can be closed by different caps and closures. The orifice can be shaped in many different ways. Plastic nozzle

Nozzle

A nozzle is a device designed to control the direction or characteristics of a fluid flow as it exits an enclosed chamber or pipe via an orifice....

s in various styles and lengths are just one good example.

To attach caps and closure

Closure

Closure may refer to:* Closure used to seal a bottle, jug, jar, can, or other container** Closure , a stopper* Closure , the process by which an organization ceases operations...

s, in most cases a thread is tapped onto the opening structure. Furthermore, something all aluminium tubes have in common is that the other open end is folded several times after the contents have been added. The tube is thus hermetically sealed and nearly germ-free due to the high temperatures during the production process. Furthermore, it is possible to coat the inside of the tube with special coatings to prevent the material from reacting with the contents.

As far as production methods are concerned, the way an aluminium tube is produced appears to be rather different from the way many people might think. Tubes are not poured from liquid aluminium; they are produced by the process of impact extrusion

Impact extrusion

Impact extrusion is a process by which products are made with a metal slug. The slug is pressed at a high velocity with extreme force into a die/mold by a punch.-Process:...

. In this process, the tube body is extruded from a small piece of aluminium with the round shape of a coin.

Unlimited printing designs can be applied to the tube, thanks to the wet-in-wet offset printing method. Six tones can be printed with this printing procedure, which gives packaging designers great opportunities to express their creativity.

The filled content can be easily squeezed out by the pressure of two fingers. The main characteristic of aluminium tubes is the total separation of the contents from the surrounding atmosphere; therefore, such tubes are especially suitable for the packaging of highly perishable contents. Aluminium tubes are used as packaging technology for cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, food, and technical products.

Other tubes

Other tubes are made of paperboard

Paperboard

Paperboard is a thick paper based material. While there is no rigid differentiation between paper and paperboard, paperboard is generally thicker than paper. According to ISO standards, paperboard is a paper with a basis weight above 224 g/m2, but there are exceptions. Paperboard can be single...

 or corrugated fiberboard for shipping poster

Poster

A poster is any piece of printed paper designed to be attached to a wall or vertical surface. Typically posters include both textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or wholly text. Posters are designed to be both eye-catching and informative. Posters may be...

s or long items. The FedEx

FedEx

FedEx Corporation , originally known as FDX Corporation, is a logistics services company, based in the United States with headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee...

 "tube" shipping container is actually an extruded triangle

Triangle

A triangle is one of the basic shapes of geometry: a polygon with three corners or vertices and three sides or edges which are line segments. A triangle with vertices A, B, and C is denoted ....

.