That's an interesting problem, there are ways to accomplish it though none are like a single command thing, unfortunately I know nothing of hydraulics and don't know how or where its meant to bend. care has to be taken to avoid breaking any compound profile or causing self intersection during the animation.
Some options are,
1. Compound profile / part tree sweep using spline path and node edit the path using keyframes, - drawback - has problems with RedSDK (works fine with v21 - which is my last Lightworks / GDI version)
2. As above but using morphing to change the spline
3. Compound profile Lofted circles and move the circles to alter the loft shape.
4. Use multiple layers with copies of the object rotated on each layer and use layers witching, would work but could be messy if there are many frames.
5. Cheat - design the tube so that normal rotate / move commands will work.
6. Things I haven't thought of yet

Do you have an 'after' picture to show what its like after its bent.