Maintaining stable production and optimizing uptime are both challenges in the recycling industry, where a tough environment and the complex variation of materials place extra demands on equipment. With a hydraulic direct drive system, it is possible to tear, shear and fraction everything from large, bulky items – such as metal scrap or entire cars – to tires, plastics...
Such an event to celebrate Hydrotech Inc.’s expansion of its suburban Cincinnati headquarters, however, revealed some unexpected facets to this diverse fluid power and automation solutions provider. Because Hydrotech is a local company, taking in its recent groundbreaking was a convenient way for me to get to know the company better. I was partly motivated by the fact...
It’s particularly useful in vertically mounted actuators where unprotected movements could damage the machine, part, or people. Piloted check valves are useful for both emergency situations and for safety during maintenance.
Conventional flow-control valves let operators and maintenance personnel tinker with valve settings for on-the-fly adjustments to air flow, and that can change machine performance and cause unexpected safety problems.
How about stability, linearization, frequency response, dynamic modes, and other concepts related to hydraulic systems? Would you like to investigate how hydraulic servovalves can be modeled? Are you aware of the stabilizing or destabilizing effects that flow forces can have on valves? Maybe you know about cavitation and water hammer, but do you know how hydraulic mod...
When a penetrated light curtain or an open guard, gate, or door activates an emergency stop switch, these PLC controlled units exhaust air from the system at rates up to 9,000 liters/min—effectively removing pneumatic pressure. These units should also protect against unexpected startups and provide for safe pressure buildup.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Environmental Pump Solutions (EPS) has been acquired and is now part of QED Environmental Systems. Through this new addition, QED now offers an array of attractive electric pump solutions to complement its well-known line of AutoPump® air-powered pumps. EPS is a Pennsylvania-based manufacturer of electric submersible pump systems used in landfill, ...
Featuring a novel two-piece construction that reduces potential leak paths to a minimum, and a design optimised for reliability, the 10,000 PSI / 689 bar valves are ideal for long-lifecycle applications. Available in four basic bore sizes of 10, 15, 20 and 25mm, the application scope for Parker's valve is very wide and spans areas such as isolation on process lines, vess...
Hydraulics is just a form of force transfer, and is often not unique to the mechanical systems. For example, many hydraulic operations can be achieved with drives, gears, belts or electric motors. Safe hydraulics involves the consideration of a safe machine, first and foremost, and this is regardless of the form of motivation. The two most critical considerations in hyd...
In the early days of middle school science class, we are taught how water and oil do not mix. You could add pretty much any oil to a beaker of water, and no manner of stirring or swirling could get it to stay mixed for more than a few seconds. If oil and water don’t mix, then why does water cause so much trouble in the hydraulic industry? Why does the industry offer wate...
There are many components of hydraulic equipment, and it is important that they all run smoothly. Here are five mistakes you may be making and how to correct them. 1. Changing the Oil If the base oil is degrading or the additive package is depleting, it’s time for an oil change. Hydraulic machines vary greatly, so there is no set amount of time or usage that will tell ...
The Austrian company supplied the pumps in 2002. Two of the original 16 pumps have already been successfully overhauled. In addition to a general overhaul of the 14 pumps, the life cycle of the shaft bearings will also be extended by installing new bearing technology. Each pump has an impeller diameter of 1950 mm and a power of 5 MW at the nominal head of 26.6 m and t...
Some companies have tried to demonstrate this fuel-efficient technology in smaller automotive vehicles, but have found that its use in medium- and large-duty trucks and buses is truly the way to go. One such company I’ve been writing about for years is Lightning Hybrids, Loveland, Colo., a developer and manufacturer of parallel hydraulic hybrid systems for medium- and...
The new generation of Enerpac's multifunctional synchronous lifting system is the EVO-system. The EVO-system is now available for everyone who needs assistance with critical lifting application. By combining the incredible strength of high pressure hydraulics with the high-speed of today's PLC-controlled systems, Enerpac has the expertise to accurately and safety lift th...
As a Caterpillar equipment dealer, we know that reducing maintenance costs and increasing uptime of our rental equipment are essential to the success of our business. Of course, this mission is never-ending, and we wouldn’t last very long if we ever decided we’ve done all we can. More than four years ago we began testing the concept that removing the sub-micronic shar...
Maintaining a safe working environment is vital for all manufacturers and is an area subject to increasingly stringent legislation - not least in the area of compressed air equipment where the focus is on the need to address issues such as overpressure, sudden movement of parts, and treatment of exhaust air. Overpressure protection To combat overpressure conditions,...
Industrial gas springs give users added strength when opening flaps, hoods and lids. Standard models such as those used for automobile engine hoods and tailgates are limited as a result of their functional principle. Since their introduction in 2011, tandem gas springs can particularly be used to operate heavy elements. A prime example of this is the assembly of converti...
Contamination is the deadly enemy of hydraulics. In fact, more than 80% of all hydraulic failures can be traced directly to contaminated fluids, and that includes failures in hoses and fittings as well as pumps and valves. The relationship between fluid contamination and component life is so consistent that hydraulic and filtration OEMs actually publish charts that ca...
These monsters can chew up anything you throw at them within seconds—refrigerators, heavy-equipment tires, hardened-steel frames, you name it. How about a bucket-wheel excavator? Talk about power, these machines can excavate more than 10,000 yards of earth per hour. Drive one of these behemoths down your street, and you’ll leave 20-ft wide swath 8 ft deep. Then aga...
Industry standards for grape-harvesting equipment have changed dramatically over the centuries-long history of wine production. In many cases, technology has replaced manual harvesting, but steep, mountainous slopes, narrow rows of vines, and widely varying picking requirements continue to challenge engineers building today’s vineyard machinery. One industry-leading m...
The components can be used for direct control of pneumatic functions or air-pilot control of hydraulic valves. Highlighted products include stackable directional valves with feathering control in both directions; a PTO Saver Valve that automatically disengages a vehicle’s PTO when spring parking brakes are released; bankable 4-way metering valves with LED backlit cont...
The new EPA Vessel General Permit (VGP) requires lubricants to be environmentally acceptable should leaks, spills or other discharges occur. To serve these requirements, Chevron Products Co., San Ramon, Calif., recently introduced Clarity Synthetic EA (environmentally acceptable) hydraulic and gear oils, which provide lubrication and thermodynamic properties and seal com...
When I was first taught about the function of a hydraulic pump, I was told its only job was to provide flow. I was also told that any pressure in a hydraulic system was a result of resistance to that flow. However, these claims are both wrong. So, what is a hydraulic pump? Hydraulic energy is the combination of pressure and flow required by the actuators to perform us...
Valves govern direction, pressure and flow of hydraulic fluid, enabling smooth, safe and controlled use of actuators. Every machine both requires and uses valves, varying vastly in execution from a few valves to dozens on one machine. Their use can be as simple as a relief valve to protect your pump and actuator, such as the relief valve built into the kick-off valve on...
Logic elements, often called differential sensing valves, are pressure control devices. Like directional control valves, a spring bias holds the spool in one position (open or closed), and it is shifted by hydraulic pressure. Unlike directional control valves, logic elements are modulating devices (not on/off) that maintain a pressure differential. By themselves, logic e...
The sleeves (usually four or five) sequentially decrease in diameter and are nested inside of each other. Once hydraulic pressure is introduced to the cylinder, the largest sleeve (called the main or barrel) is extended first. Once the barrel has reached its maximum stroke, the next sleeve, usually referred to as a stage, begins to extend. This process continues until t...
"Most people in the shop don't like working on brakes," said Shepherd, a senior airman with the 35th Maintenance Squadron. "It's the dirtiest job, but personally, it's my favorite." Shepherd works in the hydraulic systems back shop -- often called "hydro" -- where he and a team of five maintain hydraulic systems associated with Misawa Air Base’s fleet of F-16 Fighti...
Vollrath makes just about every type of commercial food and beverage preparation and serving product you can imagine — and many you probably can’t. Vollrath has six locations in Wisconsin alone, and each plant is geared toward manufacturing products made of common materials or sharing processes. Its Sheboygan plant, for example, uses vast quantities of stainless steels, ...
Construction companies always want to get projects done on time and under budget, and a high-efficiency hydraulic fluid lets them do both. Schrode GmbH calculated fuel cost savings at about $8,200 per year per vehicle by switching from conventional hydraulic fluid to a high-efficiency hydraulic fluid. Not included in the calculation was an increase in productivity fro...
Pneumatic systems are widely used for many reasons. They’re durable, clean, affordable, and fairly easy to install and maintain. They move loads in a variety of ways: pushing, pulling, lifting, lowering, and rotating. And they can handle widely varying payloads. While not ultra-precise in terms of positioning capabilities they are, nonetheless, accurate enough for countl...
More than two-thirds of the earth’s surface is covered by water, and many potential resources in those depths await exploration and development. Industries involved in this new frontier include mining, oil and gas, infrastructure, energy generation, and natural science. These activities all involve complex and highly technical systems. Many of them—particularly those ...
This bulk cargo rail car uses a completely self-contained hydraulic system to dump material to either side of the tracks. The system is driven by a dc motor from a battery, which is charged by a generator from wheel motion whenever the car is moving. Having to dump sand, gravel, soil, and other bulk materials from a railroad car can also prove challenging. The trouble...
In collecting information for my next series of blogs, I ran across another article from long ago that piqued my interest, and I think readers can learn a lot from it. It describes how air getting into the hydraulic circuit for steering an F-104 fighter aircraft caused erratic operation. More importantly, it explains what was done to correct the problem. Once again, t...
Our company was founded in December 1964 as Midwest Well Logging, and in November 2006 was purchased by a private investment group and renamed PML Exploration Services (www.pmles.com) to better reflect our long term goals. Since the acquisition, PML has expanded our operations across the U.S., and developed our own gas analysis and rig data management solutions. These so...
To date, the fraction of cross-linked chains has been established by determining the gel content by means of solvent extraction at an elevated temperature. This test method, however, requires quite a bit of effort. New investigations show that rheological measurements offer an alternative and reliable approach to determining the degree of cross-linking. This approach ...
