The loading path affects the metal formability remarkably in tube hydroforming, and it is also one of the research focuses. Recently, some scholars abroad proposed a new fluctuant hydraulic loading method, which can improve the formability of tubes in hydroforming. Related studies have shown that this new loading method can improve the tube formability, the distribution of deformation is more uniform and this is useful for avoiding excessive local thinning. In this paper, tube hydroforming experiments without axial feeding were carried out; the influences of the loading methods on formability of stainless steel tubes were studied. Through the comparison of the experimental results under the condition of monotonous increase loading and fluctuation hydraulic loading, the outside diameter distribution, the thickness distribution and the crack expansion forms of deformation zone all fully prove that the uniformity of the distribution of tube deformation and formability have been increased significantly under the condition of fluctuation loading without axial feeding, the reasons should be distinguished from the fluctuation hydroforming with axial feeding. In order to study the forming mechanism, uniaxial tensile test of tubes similar to fluctuation loading deformation is designed in this paper, namely intermittent tensile test. It is found that intermittent uniaxial stretch can improve the tube elongation at fracture by about 40% and the deformation distribution is more uniform than that through uniaxial tensile test of the stainless steel tube. In the process of intermittent tensile tests, changes of metal microstructures brought by the loading and unloading processes are the main reasons that improve the formability of the tubes. loading path, formability, tube, stainless steel Tube hydroforming technology with the characteristics of light weight and integration has been a hot issue in the plastic working field, and has been attractive in automobile industry, also in fields of aviation, aerospace and kitchen as a forming process of hollow products for satisfying the requirement of light weight, shortage of energy and increasing demands for environment protection [1,2] . A lot of work needs to be done as the technology is still developing. One of the issues is the research on internal pressure path. The proper matching of inner pressure and axial feed (loading path) is the key of the technology [3,4] . The choice and the design of the loading path are very important in tube hydroforming, which influence the formability of the materials. The effects of loading path on the formability of the materials were studied widely [5][6][7] . With the development of the tube hydroforming technology and hydraulic pressure control technology, for the forming of hollow products with a complex shape, a pulsating hydroforming process of tubes has been developed based on the computer accurate controll and is known as one of the effective methods to improve the formability.Mori et al. [8] investigated the improvement of the