Fluid Power World November 2017 by WTWH Media LLC

Industrial hydraulics maintenance p. 36

Smart vacuum regulation boosts productivity p. 42

Selecting the right hydraulic hose p. 52

www.fluidpowerworld.com

November 2017

Mobile machines in extreme environments PAGE 30

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At the National Fluid Power Association’s recent Industry and Economic Outlook Conference in suburban Chicago, Kevin Surace of Appvance spoke about the amazing disruptions that technology will play in our lives over the coming decades. The future is both scary and amazing, but we have to prepare ourselves and our businesses for it. Disruptions thanks to everything from automated vehicles to artificial intelligence will mean many of the jobs of today will vanish. And automation will continue to play a role, as well. So much of our psyche is embroiled in our jobs. What’s the first thing you do when you meet a new person? You ask their name, followed quickly by, “What do you do?” Surace says that by 2050, 80% of all of today’s tasks will be automated. Automation has been slowly taking away the routine occupations and bringing in more nonroutine occupations. That’s because the non-routine ones are harder to automate, while the routine ones are easier to automate. It’s happened from windmills to industrial robots to ATM machines. “Technology is driving down costs, and has been driving down costs for a long time,” Surace said. “But once we had the advent of the smartphone, we began to drive down costs of certain key components like we’ve never seen before—because all of a sudden, there was a consumer product that would sell over a billion units. Those numbers are staggering. We’ve never had a consumer product that sold to two billion people. Many consumer products would sell a million or two million pieces a year, which was big—like a clock radio—but nobody ever had something like this. Hence, the cost drivers to drive down certain items has been remarkable.” This type of pressure to cheapen and shrink key components is evident in gyroscopes. 70 years ago, they were large, bulky objects the size of a microwave. Today, they can sit on top of a quarter and likely cost less than the quarter itself. But he sees a bright side, too—especially for our industry. “The expansion of robotics really equals an unprecedented expansion of hydraulics and pneumatics,” he said. “Here, we’ve got all this on-shoring happening. We’ve got everything that we’re doing in AI and robotics and automation, and none of that happens without [fluid power] technologies. None of it.” Surace said that as we get smarter robots—and they can do more things—then there’s additional opportunities for hydraulics and pneumatics to be doing each step. “This is an incredible time,” he said, “And if I were in your industry, I’d be so excited.” FPW

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November 2017 C ontents |

vol 4 no 7

fluidpowerworld.com

•

2017

F E AT U R E S MOBILE HYDRAULICS Mobile machines in extreme environments

Even with brutal temperatures, work still needs to get done, and mobile hydraulic machinery exists to get that work done.

INDUSTRIAL HYDRAULICS Key aspects of industrial hydraulics maintenance

System-oriented thinking and analysis skills are required to keep your fluid power operations in good working order.

PNEUMATICS Smart vacuum regulation boosts productivity

| istockphoto

D E PA R T M E N T S

02 Editorial 08 Korane’s Outlook 10 Association Watch

Feedback in a vacuum-handling system limits product damage and energy consumption.

HYDRAULIC HOSE

Selecting the right hydraulic hose for your application

12 Design Notes

20 Distributor Update 22 Energy Efficiency 24 Safety

With a new hydraulic machine design, or with a machine that has undergone a rebuild process, there comes the moment when it is time to specify and install the hoses that conduct fluid from point to point throughout the system.

60 Products 63 Component Focus 64 Ad Index

ON THE COVER

Standard, single-grade hydraulic oil wouldn’t stand a chance in zero-degree weather. For modern mobile equipment operating in extreme winter conditions, arctic grade oil is a necessity. | istockphoto

FLUID POWER WORLD

A | S | B | P|E

American Society of Business Publication Editors

Fostering B2B editorial excellence

26 Fundamentals

11 • 2017

2017 Regional

Fostering B2B editorial excellence

2017 Regional

PR INT

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Revenue of $3 million or under

Award Winner

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Ko ra n e ’s O u t L o o k Ken Korane • Contributing Editor

Hard cash for soft robotics

Edible actuators—the future of fluid power?

The recent announcement of $26 million in funding from the National Science Foundation for soft robotics research is welcome news for the fluid power community. NSF’s Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI) program plays a critical role in helping interdisciplinary teams push the frontiers of engineering research, and one area of key interest is compliant and configurable robots. “The NSF EFRI program seeks transformative ideas that represent an opportunity for a significant shift in fundamental engineering knowledge with a strong potential for long term impact on national needs,” said Kim Stelson, director of the Center for Compact and Efficient Fluid Power. “Soft robotics has been identified as a high-growth emerging market for fluid power,” noted Stelson. CCEFP has long championed research into small, quiet, high-efficiency fluid-power systems for use in human-scale applications like wearable or implantable medical devices. “This level of government support for fluid-power research is long overdue and critical to the ongoing health of the fluid-power industry,” he added. At least 13 teams with winning proposals will receive up to $2 million each, spread over four years—part of NSF’s ongoing commitment to create an engineering science of soft robotics. In fact, in just the last few months, researchers at Clemson, Cornell, Washington State and Worcester Polytechnic, among others, garnered NSF awards of up to $400,000—for projects that involve modular elements, pliable sensors and tunably compliant composite materials for soft robots. What’s the endgame? The bottom line is that soft robots could someday perform many tasks simply impossible with 8

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| Image courtesy of the Soft Robotics Toolkit

today’s conventional rigid robots, said Prof. Cecilia Laschi of the Sant’Anna University BioRobotics Institute in Pisa, Italy. Writing in the journal Science Robotics, she stated that among the benefits, compliant soft robots can embody “intelligence” like material memory, conform to surfaces or objects, absorb energy to maintain stability, and exhibit physical robustness and human-safe operation at potentially low cost. Using soft materials and variable-stiffness technologies represents an emerging way to build new classes of robotic systems that will interact more effectively in unstructured environments and with humans, she said, and perhaps even morph, self-heal and biodegrade—opening new scenarios and applications for robotics. Perhaps best of all, the next generation of would-be engineers, with few preconceived notions of what fluid power is and does, could reinvent pneumatics in ways we haven’t yet envisioned. For instance, students at The Haverford School of Pennsylvania, the high-school winner in this year’s Soft Robotics Toolkit competition, are literally sinking their teeth into soft robotics. The team built air-actuated gummy candies as a proofof-concept for soft robot applications within the human body. The main goal was to make edible actuators and improve the often-mundane, elementary school science class by providing an early introduction into the world of soft robotics and pneumatic control. But such gummy-bear devices might also someday aid in delivering vitamins, medicines and vaccines, and tasty actuators might be useful in oral surgery as a pleasant way of reaching in a child’s mouth, said the students. They’re certainly a far cry from the venerable bang-bang air cylinder. FPW

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Edited by Mike Santora • Associate Editor

ASSOCIATION WATCH

NFPA Association Watch

NFPA’s 2017 Chicago Regional Meeting will convene at Moraine Community College in Palos Hills, easily accessible right off I-294. Moraine County is the second largest Community College in the state of Illinois. Moraine Valley is one of 12 community colleges nationwide recognized as a national Vanguard Learning College. This designation indicates that the college is learning-centered and actively works to advance teaching and learning at the college. Plus, the school has a robust fluid power curriculum and a popular Integrated Systems Technology program under the direction of Neil Barker, MS, Program Coordinator. The program will feature not only a tour of Moraine Valley’s fluid power lab, but also a presentation by Tamima Farooqui, Job Resource Specialist. Tamima will share ideas on how companies can better take advantage of the opportunities schools like Moraine offer to companies in need of workers. What hasn’t changed for this meeting is the casual networking available to both NFPA members and nonmembers alike. FPW

Chicago Regional Meeting Registration Open Where: Moraine Valley Community College, 9000 W. College Parkway, Palos Hills, IL 60646 When: Thursday, December 7, 11:30 am – 2:00 pm

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ASSOCIATION WATCH

10th year of the Fluid Power Action Challenge The first Fluid Power Action Challenge launched with just four teams in 2008. Tom Wanke, CFPE and Director of Fluid Power Industrial Consortium and Industry Relations at Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) has been a strong supporter and partner of this program since the very beginning when he came to help with the Workshop and Challenge Days in Wisconsin. Earlier this month, Wanke facilitated his 10th annual Workshop Day with 36 teams from seven middle schools, totaling 144 students. When the students arrived at MSOE’s Kern Center, they were welcomed by MSOE’s new Vice President of Academics, Eric T. Baumgartner, Ph.D. and former NASA

engineer, who opened with an interactive and upbeat introduction to the impact of engineering and manufacturing. Many representatives from various companies circled the room to help guide students as they took the first steps in building their designs, learned about fluid power careers, and received this year’s challenge scenario. Structural strength and fluidic control are main design considerations as teams are tasked with lifting an object and moving it from one location to another inside an arc. FPW

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Many representatives from various companies help guide students as they take the first steps in building their designs and learning about fluid power careers.

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DESIGN NOTES

Edited by: Mike Santora • Associate Editor

Hydraulic systems help take athletic track to the next level

The University of Michigan’s new athletic facility features a hydraulically operated running track that can be elevated and banked. To create the track, Beynon Sports Surfaces, a manufacturer of athletic surfaces and indoor running tracks, went to long-time partner, Mitchell Machine Works. MMW is responsible for creating the hydraulics system that adjusts the shape of Beynon tracks. The Rise-N-Run system, as it is called, allows the track’s running surface to be altered using 80 hydraulic cylinders controlled with a programmable HMI. Having worked on tracks for Beynon in the past, MMW understood the basic needs of system. But every new track has some inherent challenges. With this level of movement, there are bound to be torsional deflection challenges. “Accounting for the stresses, torsional deflections, and overall movement of the individual segments were the biggest initial challenges,” said MMW CEO, Mark Mitchell. 12

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When a segment of the track moves, the outer perimeter can be reduced by at least 12-in. and each individual section will move roughly 3/16 of an inch depending on the track. “If we change the radius of the turn, then there’s a slight movement to deal with in terms of how much torsional deflection there will be in the frames themselves. They actually have to twist so we have to allow them to twist under load or under stress. Additionally, of course, it also has to move, so it still has to extend and retract as it’s supports those loads,” added Mitchell. MMW took its model and then positioned it in various spots while it was inclining from zero to 10° to put it through all of its movements and see how much everything

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Sometimes evolution creates a revolution

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DESIGN NOTES

moves on a small scale before creating the actual track. After this, MMW used its inhouse, Financial Element Analysis (FEA) that shows where the stresses are during the moving process. The FEA then points out hotspots and the MMW team makes sure sufficient material is there to carry the load, and deflect without creating an increase in additional forces. Another challenge was stability. The track does not require much pressure to be raised. However, holding it in place is a critical part of the system. If one cylinder fails or comes under duress, it won’t just sink down, it will cause significant structural damage within the system. To monitor this, MMW uses what they call a “live positioning system.” The motion

When a segment of the track moves, the outer perimeter can be reduced by at least 12-in. and each individual section will move roughly 3/16 of

control is always active. It’s always monitoring, and should any component get more than its 10 millimeters out of position, even if it has been up for weeks, the system sends an alert to fix the problem.

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Edited by: Mike Santora • Associate Editor

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11/9/17 12:21 PM

DESIGN NOTES

to the problem is a power unit, which implements a variable speed drive. Green manufacturing legislation and incentives, in place in Europe for decades, forced the implementation of efficient variable speed drives for environmental reasons. However, the resulting savings in reduced energy consumption turned out to be staggering. The same technology has seen only limited adoption in the United States due to lack of incentives, low awareness, and the absence of streamlined, retrofittable implementation and support options on our shores. To combat these challenges, the system provides higher machine yield, reduces noise emissions by 20 dBA, generates less heat, produces a shorter cycle time on various machine types and involves less oil volume, all resulting in a system that saves up to 70% in energy costs to reduce the user’s carbon footprint, according to the manufacturer. The company will now offer the unit for OEM integration by other machine builders, in addition to displaying its range of metal forming machinery. MJC is a major supplier to automotive, aerospace and the wheel industry. Green Hydraulic Power is offered as standard on the hydraulic power units provided on MJC machine builds and uses the Siemens SINAMICS variable speed servo pump drive. High-demand hydraulic systems on many machine types see significant improvements using this concept from MJC Engineering, according to company President Carl Lorentzen. “We saw that the servo pump could control pressure and flow, as they precisely convert electric energy into hydraulic power. In some cases, the use of control valves is partially or completely eliminated, depending on the application. We quickly realized our development could be used on many other types of machinery as an OEM component,” Lorentzen said. “One press release from our ad agency generated substantial new business for the unit and we knew immediately we were onto something big.” The company has subsequently developed a subsidiary unit, Green Hydraulic www.fluidpowerworld.com

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Power Inc. and separate sales force for the unit’s development in the market. The applications are many for this new system concept, according to Lorentzen, as almost all machine tools using hydraulic power are candidates for variable speed servo pump drive technology. Injection presses, materials handling equipment, stamping presses, other metal forming machines and more can utilize Green Hydraulic Power, according to Lorentzen. “We’re finding new applications, almost every day now.” Complete payback on the system is estimated at 12-24 months and the system has the additional benefit of control data output from the onboard diagnostic capability in the drive that supplies information for a predictive maintenance protocol in an Industry 4.0 scenario. The basics of pressure, temperature and acceleration data measurement are standard, with additional data outputs on oil level, filter condition, running efficiency and other parameters available. The servo pump results in as much as a 70% reduction in onsite servicing, according to the manufacturer. This new line is offered in 100, 200 and 300-gal tank units rated up to 4,000 psi and is available in two styles, one with a VFD, asynchronous motor and internal gear pump, while the second has a servo inverter, synchronous servo motor and internal gear pump. FPW

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11/9/17 1:11 PM

DESIGN NOTES

Edited by: Mary C. Gannon • Managing Editor

3 1. Wandfluh’s WDMFA10 solenoid spoo l valve. 2. WVPFA10 proportional spool valv e. 3. WVBFA10 pilot-operated explosio n protection valve.

New spool valve line offers versatility, flexibility Wandfluh has completely reworked its range of NG10 spool valves and has launched a new portfolio of high-performance products onto the market. They feature an optimized cast body, which has improved performance-to-weight ratio, ΔP values, and maximum flow. Direct-operated valves The range is based on a cast body design, which is used both for direct-operated and pilot-operated valves. All valves in the range are capable of system pressures to 350 bar and some can operate at levels to 420 bar. The direct-operated version can control 160 lpm and with a very low ΔP. To reduce pressure shocks in sensitive systems, a soft shifting spool valve has been developed. By adjusting 18

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damping orifices, the valves can be individually optimized for an application. If a very sensitive flow control volume is a key design element, then a proportional spool valve would be an appropriate choice. These proportional valves with very low hysteresis can control the volume flow up to 100 lpm by means of flow simulation during design, and flow optimization. Flow forces in the valve can be kept low which has a positive effect on the flow rate in the upper pressure range. Great emphasis was placed on the symmetrical design of the valve. As a result, valves in both operating directions have the same characteristics. Various electronic control devices

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11/9/17 1:13 PM

NOW Get

DESIGN NOTES

are adapted to solenoids to allow for highly precise operation. Precise control is achieved through a superimposed dither signal and a pulse width modulation (PWM) power amplifier. Closed control circuits can also be developed which are integrated through fieldbus interfaces with machine control systems. Pilot-operated valves The cast body of the compact version of the pilot-operated valves is pilot operated by a compact NG4 spool valve. This greatly reduces installation space and enables lower solenoid power to be utilized. With the switching valves, the power of the solenoids is reduced from about 30 W (NG6) to 20 W. The maximum switching capacity increases to 160 lpm with a low ΔP. At less than 4 kg of weight, the pilotoperated spool valve is one of the lightest valves on the market. It is even lighter than the direct-operated NG10 valves. The pilot-operated proportional valve is fitted with an NG4-Mini pressure control valve, which is also one of the most compact valves on the market. The pilot control builds up to 40 bar to control the main valve up to 200 lpm. With all the Wandfluh pilotoperated valves, users can decide whether they want to use the control pressure externally or internally from inside the valve.

more drop-in interchanges

range optimum flexibility, with the same high performance data as valves without explosion protection. Explosion protection valves are often used in applications with low ambient temperatures. This means that versions of the NG10 explosion protection valves can be built for temperatures as low as –40° C. The new NG10 range also includes explosion protection proportional functions. This high-performance valve can be used in applications with large flow volumes and high operating pressures in market applications such as industrial, marine, mobile, forestry, energy, and oil and gas that must be precisely controlled. The new generation of NG10 spool valves guarantees maximum flexibility and high performance in a compact package. FPW

Wandfluh of America Inc. wandfluh-us.com

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Custom designs The valves are fitted with exchangeable slipon coils. In addition, the solenoid coils are available with different types of connectors, electrical power and surface treatments. All the products are available in a range of special variations, for explosion protection, increased corrosion protection, switching position monitoring, or low-temperature applications. The pilot control of the explosionproof version is based on NG4-Mini Valve technology, which is available in the standard range of switching valves. This modular system gives the entire NG10 www.fluidpowerworld.com

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from the air cylinder source

FABCO-AIR

Phone (352) 373-3578 • Fax (352) 375-8024

www.fabco-air.com E-Mail service@fabco-air.com 11 • 2017

FLUID POWER WORLD

11/9/17 1:13 PM

DISTRIBUTOR UPDATE

Paul J. Heney • Editorial Director

Building up a distributor network from scratch When you think of distributor networks, what may come to mind is a network that has been in place for decades. But in the case of Koganei USA, their North American distributor partners are relatively new relationships. Koganei’s parent company has been around for more than 80 years, and had previously used a single domestic manufacturing partner as a master distributor in the states. Following the formation of the U.S. subsidiary in mid-2015, the company quickly gained several dozen distributors. I spoke with William Miller, the company’s sales manager, about where he sees distribution headed. FPW: What are your expectations of a distributor? WM: Number one, we do not have any non-compete clauses. We are committed to being the easiest supplier that any distributor globally works with, compared to any other manufacturer. We think that we achieve that by how our contracts are set up. With most manufacturers, they’ll require certain inventory investment. They’ll require certain minimum quantities on deliveries. They’ll require certain dollar amounts on purchase orders. With us, there are no minimums on orders. There are no dollar amount minimums on orders. The distributors have full access to all 512,000 products.

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FPW: What happens when a potential distributor tells you they’re interested? WM: I ask them how many outside salespeople they have, and of those, how many are focused on pneumatic applications that would use pneumatic valves? Then I like to have a meeting with the sales reps who are focused on pneumatics, I look them in the eye and say, “Looking at what we manufacture out of Japan, and given that we 100% test every part prior to shipment, does that provide you enough opportunity or fill any gaps that you currently struggle with when you are working with OEM customers?” If it’s an overwhelming yes after I’ve talked to the sales team, we’ll start the relationship. FPW: What do you see as the future for industrial distribution? WM: I think that in the future, if you’re a distributor that’s focused on low cost, I do ultimately feel like you’re going to lose—only because your pricing is usually based on buying

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11/14/17 2:08 PM

power. If you’re a smaller distributor, say less than $65 million a year in sales, and if everything on your line card is based on price, you will lose—you’re no longer competing with the distributor that’s six miles down the road in the same town that you live in, that you’ve known for 30 years. You’re competing with a company that’s a huge corporation with, say 70 locations across North America, or globally. It has to be more than the cliché of selling value. For example, we have 14 distributors in North America, Canada, and Mexico, that have flown to our facilities in Japan. They spent seven days at our manufacturing plant in Komagane. They worked with our quality engineers, and they have been trained in our standard operating instructions for assemblies. They are now certified to build, assemble, and test an F-series manifold, and we ship them only the build material components. A distributor doesn’t want to be buying the same manifold. They want to buy a manifold that’s a little bit different, one that gives them a competitive advantage. That could mean output, productivity, less power, etc. What if a Koganei distributor could take your order, build, test, and ship a stainless steel cylinder—and do it the same day? It would be made that day as opposed to someone they compete with who may have a lot of buying power and there’s a lot of inventory … but that product’s been sitting on the shelf for three or four months because they have 400 sitting on the shelf waiting for an order. The stock cylinders aren’t like milk— they’re not going bad—but definitely, with seals and some of the different elastomers available, dust contamination is real and does it affect life? It absolutely could. The future of distribution is really going to be won by companies that are investing in and partnering with their suppliers.

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11/9/17 1:18 PM

ENERGY EFFICIENCY

Ron Marshall • For the Compressed Air Challenge

Compressed air fail: valve issues

A milk processing and packaging facility had two independent compressed air systems that were running inefficient modulating style compressors to produce the air needed to keep the compressed air powered machines running smoothly. With the help of their power utility, they were able to consolidate their two systems into one using a new variable speed drive compressor. This improvement saved 625,000 kWh, resulting in a 62% reduction in operating costs—worth $62,500 per year in savings. As part of the verification of the savings, a compressed air auditor placed data loggers on the system to monitor pressure and power. When the auditor removed his loggers, he noticed a significant amount of water at a pressure point downstream of the air dryer. Because the facility produces food products, this air quality issue was of high concern. All signs pointed to a problem with the new air dryer. After some investigation, it was found that the dryer was working correctly—but the compressor did not have a water separator inside the unit (some manufacturers do not provide one) and there was no wet receiver or external separator installed to collect the water that the compressor produced. This was corrected, but the moisture problem still did not go away.

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Further investigation found that a single three-way valve had been installed on the air dryer to provide both a normal and bypass function with only one valve. Careful testing was done with a dew point meter and the auditor found that, while the air dryer was working fine, this valve had an internal leak caused by damage to the internal seals. It was allowing moist air to bypass the air dryer! The valve was removed and a standard three-valve bypass arrangement was installed, which fixed the problem. Learn more about air dryer and measurements in our next Compressed Air Challenge seminar in your area. Visit www. compressedairchallenge.org for more information. FPW

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11/9/17 1:19 PM

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SAFETY

Mary C. Gannon • Managing Editor

How can quick couplings improve hose safety? CEJN’s X65 quick connect couplings and nipples feature an extra security locking feature that offers added protection against involuntary disconnection.

Hydraulic and pneumatic hose safety can be ensured by using quick-connect fittings or couplings that make a repeated connection and disconnection between fluid lines and the equipment they are attached to. Quick couplings are used in both hydraulic and pneumatic applications, and are designed for easy hand operation. These safety devices feature a male end—or plug—that is inserted into a female end—or socket—to make a secure, leak-tight seal. In extremely high-pressure hydraulic applications, a leak or accidental disconnection can cause serious personal injury or damage to machinery. In pneumatic applications, compressed air presents great dangers for hose whip. They usually feature a one-way sleeve to allow for break-away with a tool when a coupling is clamp mounted. Two-way sleeves allow for one-hand disconnection. In two-way designs, twisting and pulling the two ends breaks the connection. One of the most common designs is the flat face design, which is available as push-to-connect, threaded or screw-in. They eliminate any cavities where fluid or air can rest, thus removing the chance for trapped pressure and leakage. Flat face couplings provide high flow and low pressure drop and their sleeve-locking feature reduces the chance of accidental connection, removing leakage and spillage risks. 24

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Ball or bearing type feature spring-loaded balls lodged in cavities to make the connection. They can be disconnected with just one hand. For aggressive media, one should use non-spill designs. Non-latching couplings are heavily used in medical and test applications where frequent change-outs are common. Bayonet couplings feature two plugs that are engaged and locked by completing a quarter-turn to push the male end into the female socket. Disengaging and separation is the same, but in the opposite direction. Keep safe design in mind Remember: When selecting a hose coupling assembly, the lowest rated component is the actual safety factor. So if you have a 5,000 psi-rated hose but a 4,000 psi coupling, the safety factor of the assembly is 4,000 psi. When working with aggressive media, using color-coded or key locks helps avoid cross connection. Ensure sealing materials and all internal materials are compatible with the fluids being used. And if available, check alert rings to ensure a system is properly connected; for example, some manufacturers use a red alert ring that disappears when a system is properly connected. The dangers of oil injection injuries are real with highpressure hydraulics. This is why hydraulic high-pressure quick

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11/13/17 4:09 PM

SAFETY

couplings require more than just a Teflon tape seal or thread sealant. The higher pressure you are using, the stronger the seal required—ranging from rubber metal seals and copper seals to fully metal seals. Ensuring a safe end of life with quick couplings is also critical. When a coupling fails, you don’t want it to explode and have locking balls flying out. The design should fail with predetermined leakage paths so fluid comes out slowly. To avoid unplanned failure, conduct regular inspections and maintenance to check for wear and damage. Ensure there is no brinelling occurring where the locking ball is. Also, a hose could fail before the coupling so a visual inspection for abrasion and cuts is necessary. In pneumatic applications, safety couplings—such as CEJN’s eSafe—are designed to vent compressed air

Miniature quick-disconnects, like these from Beswick Engineering, feature a non-spill design, for use with aggressive media.

when the sleeve is pulled back while holding the nipple and hose assembly in place. After all the air is vented out of the system, only then does it release the hose, which prevents hose whip, popping noises and even moisture from escaping the system. FPW

During disconnection, CEJN’s eSafe vents the down steaming pressure, eliminating recoil and reducing noise level.

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FUNDAMENTALS

Josh Cosford â&#x20AC;˘ Contributing Editor

Where do you locate various components?

| CD

We at Fluid Power World write many articles about fluid power components, but less often do we write about where these components are located in a system. You can find in our pages what a transducer is, what a relief valve is and what a flow control is, but you will find fewer pages on locating those components. For fluid power components, location is everything, and it makes the difference between a well-designed system and a collection of parts. In reality, some hydraulic components only work when installed in a particular location; hydraulic pumps, for example, can only pump when they are installed after and plumbed to a reservoir. Stationing a pump where a cylinder should be would create odd and unpredictable system performance, to say the least. Conversely, putting a cylinder where a relief valve should be would give your circuit the lifespan long enough to fully stroke the cylinder before something blows. These examples are obvious, but where can you locate other components to take advantage of their unique qualities? 26

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Industrial Group Inc.

There are other items common to every system that can be optimized by a specific location. A hydraulic filter is most often in a return line, but is there a better location alternatively? Pressure gauges are often after the pump, but would they be better suited somewhere else? Does it make sense to only have a flow meter in the main pressure line? One of my favorite attributes of hydraulics is the countless ways you can use components outside of their standard scope of operation. The lowly relief valve can do much more than regulate pressure; it can also control the motion of loads, operate functions in sequence, or dampen

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11/9/17 1:35 PM

“In reality some hydraulic components only work when installed in a particular location; hydraulic pumps, for example, can only pump when they are installed after and plumbed to a reservoir.” load-induced pressure. You see, a counterbalance valve, a sequence valve and a crossover relief valve are all just versions of the relief valve with small modifications, such as check valves or external drains, to make them more suitable in a different location. A system relief valve installed after a pump really just needs to be a spring and a ball or poppet, one port plumbed to the pressure side and the other to the tank side—and that’s about it. Because it drains straight to tank, it doesn’t need a dedicated drain line for internal leakage. Let’s move the relief valve to the cap port of a cylinder under compressive load. That relief valve is now a direct acting counterbalance valve, and will not open to allow the cylinder to lower until its pressure setting is achieved. Same valve, different location. Nevertheless, the counterbalance valve requires a reverse-flow check valve if you ever want to raise the cylinder again, and it would be a good idea to drain the spring chamber to tank so that trapped pressure doesn’t lock the valve closed. Let’s flip that relief valve around so that it flows towards the cap port of the cylinder. Now the valve won’t open—and the cylinder won’t lift—until upstream pressure reaches the setting of the relief valve. www.fluidpowerworld.com

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We now have a sequence valve. Because this valve will see pressure on both ports, it needs to have a vented spring chamber. In these circumstances without a drain, any pressure in the spring chamber is additive to spring pressure, and the valve will quickly lock shut. Also, if you want the cylinder to lower, you’ll need to add that check valve again. There is a way to use a relief valve unchanged from its original purpose. If you have a hydraulic motor, you sometimes need to dampen the inertia of the load being turned by the motor. If you simply slam a directional valve shut, pressure spikes in the outlet port of the motor as fluid has nowhere to go. Simply plumb the pressure port of the relief valve in a tee to the motor outlet line, and when the directional valve shuts, the fluid bypasses to the inlet side of the motor plumbing. This has the effect of absorbing that inertial energy, and if the motor is bi-rotational, you can add one plumbed backwards from the other port. Relief valves essentially change their function by their location, but there are circumstances where you want to use a component the same way in a different location. A pressure gauge or pressure transducer, for example, can be mounted in various locations to provide differing metrics. I’ll use the transducer as an example, because its precisions and accuracy make it useful in ways pressure gauges cannot be. Just like a relief valve, a pressure transducer can measure system pressure, letting you know the total load on your pump and prime mover. You can also measure pressure at a subcircuit of the machine, such as the clamping function of a press. A pressure-reducing valve keeps downstream pressure lower than system pressure, and mounting the transducer downstream shows what load pressure is, even if it’s different from the rest of the system. A pair of transducers can be placed on either side of a metering valve, such as a proportional directional valve, and in this combination, you can compare the two signals to observe actual pressure drop, which tells you real flow rate. If a desired pressure drop—and therefore flow rate—is 11 • 2017

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Which brake motor motors best?

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11/9/17 1:36 PM

FUNDAMENTALS

known by the PLC, it will adjust the signal to the proportional valve to maintain that pressure regardless of changes in load-induced pressure. A transducer can be placed in even more unlikely locations, such as the return line. Although no actual work is expected to be achieved on the tail end of system flow, measuring accurate tank line pressure helps diagnose other problems. A spike in tank line pressure is a symptom of other problems, and it’s possible to measure milliseconds, rather than steady-state pressure of an analog gauge. Spikes in tank pressure could be because of decompression shock, which is the sudden release of energy when a high pressure, high volume of fluid is released at once, such as on a large shear. This shock can cause damage in hydraulic components, but can be hard to detect without accurate instrumentation. Another tank line component popular in hydraulics is the return filter. Because return line flow is low pressure, it’s common to place an inexpensive filter assembly there to remove particles as they enter the reservoir. But is this the best choice of location? Think about it … why are we letting the particles travel the circuit in its entirety only to clean it as it enters the location most likely to ingest contamination anyway—the reservoir. I’m a firm believer that filters should exist in pressure lines, especially right after the pump. If fluid entering an expensive and complex machine is clean, components are more reliable and accurate, and only the pump itself risks contamination damage. There really is no way for oil to be too clean, so you can go ahead and use supplemental filtration in return lines and other key locations, but the days of a single return filter need to end. I’ve seen complicated injection molding machines with five pumps; four to provide system flow, and one for pilot pressure. On one example, there were four 50-gpm flow meters attached to each pump’s outlet to see if they were providing their full-rating of 40 gpm each. These were thousand-dollar flow meters rated for 3,000 psi, so you can 28

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• • • • •

0021_Flu

FUNDAMENTALS

imagine the importance of this machine. However, I can save $3,500 of the $4,000 worth of flow meters, and more accurately observe the health of each of those pumps. These pumps were electronically controlled variable displacement pumps, and when they weren’t flowing as expected, the flow meters showed reduced flow. However, they didn’t tell us if the pumps themselves were the problem or the electronics had failed. My improvement would be to put four small, low-pressure flow meters on the pump drain lines. If historical leakage flow from the drain lines was 5 gpm, and this rose to 10 gpm over the course of a few days, I can tell you your pump is definitely the culprit. Any fluid in a pump has to go either out the drain line or the pump outlet, and if it’s the drain line,

it’s wasted as pure heat rather than useful work. These examples show you how standard components used thoughtfully in nonstandard locations can provide valuable improvements to your hydraulic circuit. Furthermore, standard components can be used in standard locations with different results, proving that like in real estate, it’s all about location. FPW

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Mobile machines in

extreme environments

| istockphoto.com

Josh Cosford • Contributing Editor

FLUID POWER WORLD

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www.fluidpowerworld.com

11/9/17 1:59 PM

Even with brutal temperatures, work still needs to get done, and mobile hydraulic machinery exists to get that work done. Let’s face it, the world can be an extreme place. In the past decade, it appears the world is becoming exponentially more extreme, especially environmentally. The cold seems colder, the hot seems hotter and the wet seems wetter. I’m lucky enough to live in a part of the world experiencing the least extreme weather and climate events, but I’m a minority. Billions live where it’s hot and getting hotter, cold and getting colder, and wet and getting wetter. Regardless of climate, projects from construction to mining still need to get done. Luckily, mobile hydraulic machinery exists to get that work done, no matter how extreme. Hydraulic machinery trumps nearly every other mechanical form of power transmission when it comes to working in extreme environments—it’s compact, powerful, reliable, controllable and can

be unstoppable. Although not every piece of mobile machinery is manufactured to operate in both desert and arctic climes straight off the factory floor, they can be designed or optioned out to work very well in either. On top of that, pretty much only hydraulic machinery can manhandle an underwater task with both power and reliability. Warming up to the cold

You’d be surprised at how much work is done in arctic climates. Anchorage and Whitehorse residents don’t hibernate, and construction, maintenance and recreation don’t stop, not matter how cold. Construction season used to be April until November in Northern states and provinces, but if you live in any large city, you know it’s now a year-round annoyance. The same goes for habitats situated

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FLUID POWER WORLD

11/14/17 9:37 AM

Even with brutal temperatures, work still needs to get done, and mobile hydraulic machinery exists to get that work done.

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upon permafrost … do you think that patch of runway asphalt at ANC airport can wait until July to be patched? Not likely. So why is fluid power so good in cold weather? Consider a hydraulic system to be like the internal workings of your body. If your blood was near freezing, you wouldn’t achieve much in a work day, to say the least. Although hydraulic oil won’t freeze like your blood could, it doesn’t move well when it’s cold. But just like your mammalian nature, so too is a hydraulic machine warm blooded. Humans are capable of extraordinary feats of endurance in even the coldest of conditions, partly because of our internal furnaces, and partly because of appropriate equipment. With the help of insulated outerwear, we can survive and thrive in extreme cold. A hydraulic machine appropriately outfitted for cold weather operation can also thrive. The first step is choosing appropriate “blood” for low-mercury conditions. Standard, single-grade hydraulic oil wouldn’t stand a chance in zero-degree

weather. It would move as well as maple syrup, and would waste huge energy just to convey itself around the circuit. Even a typical, high-quality synthetic fluid with excellent viscosity index (the ability to maintain its viscosity over a wide temperature range) just won’t do in severe cold. No, a brutally cold jobsite requires arctic grade oil. Arctic oil starts with low viscosity synthetic base, typically 15-20 cSt, which itself is good for very cold temperatures. However, because of the nature of hydraulic machinery, oil warms itself up simply by operation. Heat is created within the oil from the pressure drop of moving the fluid and the internal leakage of pumps, motors and valves. This warm blooded nature of hydraulics is why it does so well in the cold, but under heavy workloads, and even in the cold, hydraulic oil can get too hot for 15 weight oil.

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To combat a loss of lubrication related to low viscosity, arctic oils are heavily modified with viscosity index improvers. It’s not uncommon to see in the range of 200-300 VI for arctic oils. You read that correctly; 200+ viscosity index. This prevents the hydraulic oil from getting too thin under operating conditions, especially on those balmy 40° F degree summer days in the Arctic Circle. I should mention, of course, mobile machinery even with arctic oil will still be sluggish upon start-up. Just like a hibernating Arctic ground squirrel, it takes time for the lifeblood of the machine to come up to operating temperature upon start-up. Response time can be improved with hydraulic oil heaters submersed in the reservoir, which are common for cold-weather machinery. Keeping their cool

Diametrically opposed to cold weather operation, is the extreme heat. More mobile machinery has to endure sweltering climates than they do sub-zero, and there are really only a few things a machine designer can do to tackle the problem of heat, but limiting the contribution to viscosity breakdown through heat is the primary goal. I’ve said this in past articles, but efficiency is the most important goal of a hot-weather machine engineer. Any fluid lost at pressure without doing useful work is converted to pure heat. Making the most of your input energy to ensure little energy is lost to poor circuit design or high-leakage components, ensures little internally generated heat, which itself can be much higher than ambient temperatures. It should go without saying, any mobile machinery worth its weight in scrap steel should start off with a load sensing hydraulic circuit coming from an efficient variable piston pump. Load sensing works by sensing pressure downstream of every metered valve (often a proportional directional valve, but could just be a feathered lever valve), and then comparing downstream pressure to upstream pressure. The load sense network could be hydraulic pilot circuits or pressure transducers, but both will work well. The point of load sensing is to provide only enough pressure and flow demanded by the load at each actuator. Typically some energy is wasted through pressure drop, but it’s negligible, and more or less just what’s required to move fluid through the system. Electronic load sensing is even more efficient, and can operate with less pressure drop than is required with hydraulic control. Just as important to choosing an efficient circuit design is the selection of efficient components. All hydraulic components require at least a little bit of internal leakage to lubricate moving parts, but some are inherently more conservative with that leakage. You will win no friends in the desert if your wheel drive motors are the gerotor type, even if it’s the more efficient disc valve design. Gerotors leak like selfies from an iCloud account, and should be avoided at all costs. Only use piston pumps and motors for your mobile machinery, which are efficient in the range of 90% plus. Gerotor motors are lucky to get 60% efficiency, meaning they convert 40% of their input energy to pure heat. Heat in a mobile hydraulic system is as sure as the sunrise, and mobile machinery tends to run hot anyway. An operating tempera

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ture of 140° isn’t uncommon, and if heat is becoming too much of a problem, upgraded cooling can benefit. Large heat exchangers with hydraulically driven fan motors can remove massive amounts of heat, even when ambient temperatures are above three digits. To cope with a naturally hot fluid, mobile machines can run thicker viscosity multi-weight oils, which as opposed to arctic oils, are designed to maintain their viscosity well into the high mercury. Power density underwater

After the extremes of cold and hot comes the extreme of water. Mechanical systems work well in water, but don’t have the controllability of hydraulics. Electrical actuation is possible under water, but power density is extremely limited with electric machinery. Hydraulics work well in water because of their inherent water tightness. Keeping wa-

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ter out isn’t much different than keeping oil in, although seals may need to be upgraded if water submersion is deep enough to witness high ambient pressure. Other than a prime mover’s requirement for air, if it’s an internal combustion engine, hydraulics don’t care if they’re surrounded by water or air. I once worked with a company offering underwater inspection and maintenance services. They had many electric ROVs for inspection work, but had nothing for getting work done. They were developing a hydraulically operated, stainless steel skid-steer robot small enough to fit into a manhole, but was powerful enough to move through and vacuum sludge. It used two small hydraulic motors as drive wheels, and included a hydraulically driven auger and pump. As small as it was, it still weighed more than 500 lb, making electric actuation difficult. The robot was controlled electronically,

and had a single integrated hydraulic circuit with four proportional directional valves. It was fed by a remote power unit, through a custom 500-ft umbilical incorporating 3/8-in. pressure and tank lines, in addition to all electrical wires. The pump supplied a mere 1.5 gpm, but because there was a 1000 ft of hose to move fluid through, the pressure drop was more than 600 psi. The robot was capable of vacuuming up toxic sludge in up to 100-ft deep water when its water hose was connected. It was essentially impervious to its environment, and had the power density to chew up solids with its auger, something just not possible with electric motors in such a small package. Only fluid power can operate in such diverse extremes so reliably. Although few hydraulic machines can be pulled from one extreme and plopped into the other, there isn’t an extreme environment on Earth where fluid power isn’t the first choice. FPW

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Key aspects of industrial hydraulics maintenance System-oriented thinking and analysis skills are required to keep your fluid power operations in good working order. Carl Dyke • CD Industrial Group Inc.

In a fluid power system, the source energy enters at one central point, just like an electrical system. The energy is distributed through control mechanisms and conductors to the final motion devices, just like in many electrical systems. Like an electrical relay, a hydraulic directional valve is a block with protruding conductors. An industrial hydraulic system is often viewed as analogous to an electrical system, and there are indeed many similarities. The assumption made by some maintainers, that the unseen medium travelling within hydraulic lines needs little attention—and that changes in component or system performance are unlikely or infrequent—is often based on a comparison, and not necessarily a correct one, to electrical systems. A hydraulic system is much more mechanically and biologically active than an electrical system. 36

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While making sure that electrons can flow freely does require some electrical system maintenance work, the electrons themselves don’t require care. Electrical terminals must be kept tight, but the conductors themselves need little attention. By comparison, hydraulic hoses and tubes are under significant mechanical stresses both inside and out, at nearly all times. The hydraulic fluid moving within the conductors can easily degrade, too. Maintenance as a discipline A hydraulic system is not often purchased independently in the industrial plant environment. Rather, hydraulic systems come to exist on a factory floor as a part of a complex machine or system that was purchased to manufacture a product or complete a process. As a result, hydraulic system main-

“The daily routine of checking system and subcircuit pressures, cylinder cycle times and also system and component temperatures is a valuable one.”

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tenance is often not developed as a specific discipline. The machine manufacturer may provide some hydraulics maintenance notes within the pages of the equipment manual. Often times, those notes contain little more than how to fill and commission the hydraulic system, and not how to maintain it on an ongoing basis. Maximizing the asset life, and specifically the life of the hydraulic system, is not a common topic in machinery manuals. Once a new machine or manufacturing line is up and running, the electrically driven hydraulic pumps start up along with other electrical motor driven functions on the machine. The directional valves with hoses connected to the cylinder and hydraulic motors remain in place in the same way an electrical relay remains mounted in a controls cabinet with its associated wiring. It is easy for the machine owner to assume all is well and overlook the development of a maintenance program for the hydraulic system. If viewing a hydraulic system as an inert set of components as perhaps some electrical systems are viewed leads to the incorrect approach to system maintenance, how then should a hydraulic system be maintained? Continuous observation of the system and logging basic performance data is a valuable discipline to develop. Many preventative maintenance work orders in the factory environment ask for little more than to “check” the pump and to “check” the cylinders. If a maintainer finds that those components are still in place and appear to be performing their designated function, the check boxes on the form are ticked. Has good observation work been performed? No, it has not. Is it the maintenance department’s key responsibility to make sure that major machine components are still in place and functioning? I would argue that these tasks fall to the machine operators. The maintenance department is tasked with providing a certain type of care. Assuming that a machine or system was properly designed for the use it receives, and that the machine was commissioned

correctly, the maintenance department is there to help achieve reliable machine performance and the maximum possible machine life. If no fluid is leaking noticeably from a hydraulic system, and if machine functions appear normal, many would assume that there is little maintenance work to do. Hydraulic failures in a factory are infrequent for many systems. “Our hydraulic systems rarely break down or malfunction” is a common statement made by many that I visit in the mills and factories of North America. It is a very telling statement with positive and also negative aspects. What we learn is that the hydraulic systems do, in fact, break down. Not every single breakdown and malfunction can be avoided with maintenance. If very little true maintenance is done, however, it stands to reason that the breakdowns that do occur may indeed be tied to a lack of specific activities. Many breakdowns that result in lost production time can be detected early and thus avoided or planned for, with careful observation and data recording.

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Firefighters who go door-to-door in a community, providing fire prevention information and asking if you have recently changed your smoke detector battery, are engaged in fire prevention work. Many would argue that this activity is nowhere near as exciting as putting out a fire. Few citizens however, need a complete analysis of the economics of this fire-prevention work to know that the high costs of a building fire may include the lost lives of the building occupants, the risked lives of the firefighters and many other capital and operational expenses. Maintaining a hydraulic system similarly lacks the particular type of excitement of fighting a fire. A reliable system that lasts for many years is the only reward. Yet this excitement and reward is tied to profitability

and possibly, business survival. What other type of excitement is or should be desired? Get organized The daily routine of checking system and subcircuit pressures, cylinder cycle times and also system and component temperatures is a valuable one. A spreadsheet can easily serve for record keeping and for graphical analysis. Daily or weekly fluctuations in the values may be allowable for any number of reasons. The value of the activity, however, becomes clear when a lasting trend starts and the values are seen to climb or drop from the norm. These activities fall under an approach referred to as condition-based maintenance. A cylinder or valve that runs consistently warmer than usual may indicate

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the development of an internal leak. This internal leakage may correlate with a cylinder cycle time change as well. An increase in the overall system temperature may correlate with a change to the observed maximum system pressure. Pressure control valves or pump controls may need to be adjusted. This is maintenance by careful monitoring of the internal performance of the system. A cylinder used in a pressing or product forming function may have its maximum force controlled by a pressure-reducing valve. Routinely checking this valve setting is important, as this type of valve may fail open—and allow excessive pressure at the cylinder. Discovering any change early may help save the cylinder from excessive wear and stress.

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;If a filter has only a basic, inexpensive, popup style indicator to alert a maintainer when the filter needs to be changed, valuable opportunities to observe the system have been lost.â&#x20AC;? Routinely checking pressure values, temperatures and cycle times as described above is uncommon and yet necessary in my experience. You cannot see inside a hydraulic system, so one needs to observe very carefully from the outside and make use of testing instruments. Regular data gathering gives you the needed insight for systems analysis. Data gathering How can you achieve this data gathering? The use of one, high-quality, digital pressure gauge and the installation of many quick-connect test points enables the pressure measurement work. Test point fittings are common on all sub-circuits for many brands of mobile machine hydraulic systems. These inexpensive fittings should be installed in industrial plant hydraulic systems as well. The same digital pressure gauge may also be capable of reading partial vacuum values. This makes it the correct tool to routinely measure the pressure at the pump inlet. A pump inlet pressure reading that has moved deeper into the vacuum range from its commissioned value is the best way to detect a tank strainer that is starting to become plugged or a collapsed suction hose with its potential to cause cavitation. The pump manufacturer will provide you

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with a maximum (most negative) vacuum value that is acceptable for your pump model. Measuring temperatures can be as simple as recording the tank thermometer reading. An overheating system can have a number of causes and should be investigated as soon as possible. Your monthly hydraulic oil analysis report indicates whether the viscosity is still correct. Oil that is too thin will not adequately lubricate pump components. This leads to overheating and shortened pump life. Many components can be checked with a handheld contact thermometer or with a laser pointed temperature gun. Infrared thermography cameras have become affordable and common for many production plants. Their advanced temperature measuring capabilities can be put to work for both electrical and hydraulic system maintenance. Keep track of cylinder cycle times and hydraulic motor speeds to detect any change in flow rate early. A cylinder that has slowed down, however slightly, indicates that either an internal leak is developing or that a pump has reduced its displacement. Flow measurement instruments are not commonly installed in hydraulic circuits for permanent use, but they are certainly the correct instruments to use for many diagnostic and system commissioning activities. For basic daily maintenance

monitoring, flow issues can be detected by timing a cylinder with a stopwatch. If your plant machinery has cylinder position sensors connected to programmable controllers, then the task of tracking cycle times can be automated. The use of filters to remove particle contaminants from hydraulic fluids is a common topic among hydraulic maintenance practitioners. It is well documented that the presence of hard particles within a hydraulic fluid is a cause for component wear and performance degradation, and a possible cause for sudden component failure. This is especially true for valves. Valves either jam in the open position, the closed position or somewhere between those two points. The source or cause of a valve jamming or seizing is often a solid contaminant such as silica, a metal particle or rust. Have your hydraulic fluid analyzed by a lab to detect the presence of water and to compare the size and quantity of particle contaminants with the maximum allowed by the manufacturer of your pumps and valves. Improve the quality of filters used along with your filling practices to bring the contamination levels down to acceptable levels. Share the fluid cleanliness level required by the component manufacturers along with the monthly or quarterly particle count on the lab reports with all maintainers. This practice helps to drive aware-

A COMPLETE RANGE OF SENSORS:

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ness along with better maintenance. Many undesired particles enter a hydraulic system via a poor-quality tank breather. High quality micronic breathers containing a desiccant can help to strip solid particles entering the tank and also control moisture. If a filter has only a basic, inexpensive, pop-up style indicator to alert a maintainer when the filter needs to be changed, valuable opportunities to observe the system have been lost. Filter housings can be equipped with sensitive differential pressure gauges or sensors. These instruments can indicate the very beginning of a sudden run up in contamination. This article serves only as an overview of some major issues in industrial hydraulic system maintenance and to illustrate the needed systems-thinking. Many of the maintenance challenges for a hydraulic system happen on the inside where they are not readily observed. Measuring and then controlling what some would regard as very subtle properties yields the best long-term benefit. Like a biological system, each industrial hydraulic system may need its own unique maintenance emphasis. Hydraulics will certainly require more attention than most electrical systems but similarly require strong analysis skills to achieve the best results. FPW

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Smart vacuum

regulation boosts productivity

Feedback in a vacuum-handling system limits product damage and energy consumption.

Josef Karbassi • Vice President Automation Division • Piab AB • Täby, Sweden

It goes without saying that optimized systems are the most productive. But optimizing an automated, vacuum-based handling system that must deal with a variety of products and operating conditions is no simple task. That requires “smart” regulation tools. To fully appreciate how such tools can improve a system, let’s take a step back in time. In the 1830s machinery in Scotland’s textile mills, to function optimally, had to run at a constant and steady temperature. The need for optimization led to the development of the bimetallic thermostat. A thermostat senses the temperature and then automatically regulates the system so that it maintains desired conditions without manual intervention. And records show that simple thermostats were, in fact, already used in the early 17th century to regulate the temperature of incubators for chickens. These first industrial uses of thermostatic regulation are also some of the first examples of feedback-controlled systems. What, one might ask, do textile mills and poultry incubators have to do with vacuum-based automated handling systems? Well, the latter also benefits from feedback regulation, as this helps to precisely maintain proper operations despite varying conditions. A “smart” vacuum-controlled regulator will sense the vacuum pressure, and then automatically adjust the feed pressure to an air-driven vacuum pump to maintain a set and constant vacuum level. Keeping vacuum pressure constant in automated handling systems ensures a steady grip and helps prevent product damage, speeds production and lowers overall production costs.

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Regulating pressure

Suction cups and air-driven vacuum pumps are an unbeatable combination for the automated gripping and handling of items like cardboard boxes. Case or carton erectors and rotary carton machines are widely used throughout industry and, together with robot-driven applications such as palletizing and de-palletizing, these benefit greatly from the winning technology formula of suction cups and air-driven vacuum pumps and ejectors. However, to keep a safe grip on the boxes without causing damage, it is essential to maintain the vacuum at precisely

the right level for each individual box. This is easier said than done, because corrugated cardboard is a porous material; it will leak, but not always at the same rate. The rate of air flow through the material will vary even within a well-defined carton quality. When using suction cups, air leakage also depends on how well the lip of the suction cup seals onto the corrugated surface. This can vary from one box to another, and from one production cycle to the next.

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Vacuum gripper systems like these are widely used in packaging and handling operations. Those with internal feedback tend to be more productive and economical. | istockphoto

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P N E U M A T I C S Keeping vacuum pressure constant in rotary feeder systems ensures a steady grip and helps prevent product damage.

Traditionally, vacuum-handling systems for corrugated carton materials have been designed for the “worst-case scenario” in terms of leakage. That is, making sure that there is sufficient gripping force every cycle, or for every individual cardboard box. As a result, many systems are substantially oversized and, hence, wasteful in terms of energy consumption for most operating cycles. More money is spent on energy to produce vacuum flow, and larger systems also tend to have higher up-front costs and can hurt productivity. Limiting force

Another serious drawback is that excessive force can damage the box or product. Suction cups provide a gentle grip compared with many other alternative solutions, and will not damage the cardboard surface if properly used. Lifting force can be controlled by the size of the cup and the vacuum pressure, Damage to the surface of cardboard boxes is related to high vacuum pressure. Thus, there is a balance between

Greater vacuum versus larger cups The gripping and lifting force in a vacuum-cup

handling application can be controlled by the size of the cup and the vacuum pressure. For engineers, the general rule is that it is best to keep vacuum pressure as low as possible and the cups as large as possible. Consider that lifting force from a suction cup is defined by two factors: suction cup area and the vacuum pressure, or F = A x P. Because the area is a “square” unit, it is clear that the force will increase or decrease more by changing the suction cup area versus changing the vacuum pressure. So a small decrease in vacuum pressure will not affect the force much. The simple conclusion for system designers is to use as low a vacuum pressure as possible and as large a suction cup as practical.

The piSAVE optimize, shown with a piCLASSIC vacuum pump, senses and regulates system pressure to maintain a constant level. 44

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P N E U M A T I C S

Energy calculator details cost savings Limiting the vacuum pressure on leaking materials like corrugated cardboard boxes can significantly reduce the energy consumption in vacuum pumps. But are the resulting savings worthwhile? Piab’s piSAVE optimize energy calculator helps detail the specific savings. The online tool first lets the user choose metric or imperial units. One then selects the installed ejector nozzle type. This includes a range of Mini and Midi Coax ejectors, Classic nozzle rows, and numerous nozzles ranging in size from 0.8 to 2.5 mm in diameter. Next the tool queries for the number of nozzles/nozzle rows, the “vacuum on” and “vacuum off” time for the application, and the operation hours per year. Finally, the user inputs the ejector feed pressure before and after installation of a piSAVE optimize regulator. The software then outputs the potential energy savings versus a traditional regulator. Note that users often gain additional savings by preventing product damage that could otherwise be caused by excessive vacuum and force. The energy calculator is available at www.piab.com.

the required lifting/handling force and the potential damage to the surface, and it is difficult to fine-tune this balance for each cycle or box. The surface of a box can be damaged or marked if vacuum pressure increases in the suction cup because leakage flow through the cardboard box is lower than expected, and lower than the average leakage flow of the boxes in a particular cycle. Quite often, needlessly high vacuum pressure is used to achieve sufficient suction force, rather than designing a system with sufficiently large cups. The solution is to maintain a constant vacuum despite variations in the cardboard material makeup. If a fixed or constant vacuum level can be guaranteed irrespective of cardboard quality in each box, damage or marks can be avoided, while sufficient

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“For a vacuum system handling corrugated cardboard, the piSAVE optimize maintains constant vacuum pressure by adjusting the feed pressure to the air driven vacuum pump, automatically, cycle by cycle.” vacuum pressure will still be present to grip and lift the box and maintain maximum production speed. Unfortunately, the feed pressure for airdriven vacuum pumps is usually adjusted with a manually controlled air-pressure regulator. The unit regulates high-pressure supply lines and gives a set/regulated constant air pressure to a device—for instance, an air-driven pump—independent of air pressure flow, but not a constant vacuum level. The above discussion shows that for corrugated-cardboard handling applications with vacuum cups, it would be most gentle (no marks or damage), economical and energy efficient if feed pressure to the airdriven pump could vary from cycle to cycle to keep the vacuum level constant. With a manual-controlled regulator that would require a full-time person adjusting the feed pressure by hand for each cycle—impractical, to say the least. piSAVE optimize

Piab has addressed this need with the development of a vacuum feedback-controlled air pressure regulator, where a constant vacuum level is set by the operator only once. Tailor-made for air-driven vacuum 48

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P N E U M A T I C S

“piSAVE optimize has an operating range for set vacuum levels from 25 to 70 kPa (7.4 to 20.7 in.-Hg).”

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pumps and ejectors, this smart regulator, called the piSAVE optimize, senses the system vacuum on a sensing port, and then regulates to maintain a constant vacuum level by momentarily increasing or decreasing the air pressure to the vacuum pump. Thus, it automatically adjusts the vacuum pump’s supplied pressure based on the application. Only the necessary amount of compressed air required will be used without sacrificing speed or performance. Initially, the device starts with full pressure until it reaches set vacuum level and ensures full force and pick-up speed when suction cups are applied to the surface. For a vacuum system handling corrugated cardboard, the piSAVE optimize maintains constant vacuum pressure by adjusting the feed pressure to the air driven vacuum pump,

automatically, cycle by cycle. A constant and as-low-as-possible (optimized) vacuum pressure in a system for handling corrugated cardboard will: • Eliminate risk for damage/marks on the surface. • Reduce energy consumption in the range of 30 to 50%, which equates to an annual savings of around $125 per installation for a typical handling application. An oversized vacuum system for handling corrugated cardboard is an effect of varying leakage from carton to carton to handle worst-case conditions. It creates unnecessary deep vacuum pressure (that consumes extra energy) for most cycles/samples, as well as heightens the risk of surface damage.

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Holding vacuum steady when handling corrugated cardboard minimizes indents or marks and reduces energy consumption. A constant vacuum level for materials like corrugated cardboard, despite a large leakage variation (both through and over surfaces) cycle by cycle, can now easily be achieved with a new generation of vacuum controlled air-pressure regulator, like the piSAVE optimize. piSAVE optimize has an operating range for set vacuum levels from 25 to 70 kPa (7.4 to 20.7 in.-Hg). It works with any air-driven pump/ejector that has an air-consumption from approximately 100 to 900 Nl/min (3.5 to 31.8 scfm) at recommended feed pressure. That includes single-stage, air-driven vacuum pumps/ejectors as well as multistage vacuum pumps/ejectors. For circuits with smaller ejectors, one piSAVE optimize can to be used for two or more small ejectors. Besides the positive energy saving from an environmental perspective, the low difference in price versus a traditional air regulator will pay off in a few months for new installations. Updating an existing system which already has a regulator will typically pay off in less than a year in a suction-cup handling application for corrugated cardboard. Materials-handling engineers can now use vacuum feedbackcontrolled regulation to optimize automated systems based on vacuum ejectors, and to boost their productivity in the process, without compromising on lifting capacity.

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Selecting the right

hydraulic hose for your application Carl Dyke • CD Industrial Group Inc.

FLUID POWER WORLD

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While the main functions of a machine and perhaps the most clever aspects of

its design are likely contained within the mechanical works including the valves and actuators, the required hoses are not minor accessories. Careful thought and consideration are needed in order to make the best hose selection. While inside diameter and the working pressure rating of a hose are typical factors to start with, outer diameter and the weight of a particular hose model are often critical on mobile machines. A press in a factory setting or a mining drill maker may be quite concerned with the expected life of a hose as indicated by the pressure impulse cycle rating. Impulse cycles are sudden on-off pressures that cause stress to a hose. The test is typically conducted with pressure impulses at 133% of the working pressure rating. A rating of 200,000 cycles is considered minimal, with 1,000,000 cycle products available for those who wish to pay for them. Many readers might be accustomed to selecting a different hose product line for the larger diameter applications. Typically the working pressure decreases as the hose diameter gets larger within a single product line. A hose manufacturer may also offer a convenient single-pressure option where all diameters within a particular product line have the same working pressure rating. The types of fittings to be used, the nature of the fluid, abrasion resistance, the flexing cycles of a hose and a range of installation challenges all add to the list of factors to be considered. Objective information concerning the properties and construction of the common 100R-series hose can be found in the standard, SAE 517. Recommended Practices for Hydraulic Hose Assemblies, covered under SAE J1273, provides a wealth of advice on installation and on wear/maintenance issues. If you’ve seen Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) approval markings on hoses and have wondered what they mean, simply purchase the matching standards and practices documents from the www.sae.org website. For those who work with ISO standards, similar documents are available from the ISO website.

Don’t twist hydraulic hose. It severely compromises hose integrity.

Make sure to leave at least two hose widths of space between the crimp and any bends when determining hose length. Here’s an example of a correct length, one that is too long and one that is much too short.

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H Y D R A U L I C

H O S E

Important words about safety

It shouldn’t need to be said that a hose burst failure is always a catastrophic incident. In the best case scenario, a hose failure might cause production downtime or environmental contamination concerns. In a worse scenario, persons could be seriously injured or even killed. Using economics as the only or primary hose selection criteria can easily leave human risks at a very high level. A colleague recently contacted me regarding concerns about the pressure ratings of hydraulic hoses in use at the plant where he had just been hired on. He noticed that the normal system pressure was routinely at levels that were slightly higher than the working pressure rating of the hoses. Management assured him that with the known burst pressure rating for the hose at several multiples above the working pressure rating, there was no cause for concern and that the added expense for a higher rated hose was unnecessary. This is one example of a very poor hose selection process. In this case, safety was being neglected. Never use hoses regardless of their age if you are aware of incidents of system overpressuring that have exceeded the normal working pressure. Cracked, blistered or abrasion worn hoses should never be put back into service. What is “hose whip?”—Hose whip, (a shorter

The hose layline should always include the maximum working pressure (WP). In addition, pertinent information such as inside diameter, manufacturer and model name, size, etc. can be found on the layline.

name for what happens if a hose or fitting breaks, and the hose then flails freely) can easily dismember or kill. Most hydraulic hoses are made up of layers of wire braid and include steel fittings on the end of the hose assembly. Imagine getting hit by a steel cable moving at high speed, and you’ll have an idea of the damage a hydraulic hose can do if it breaks away. In the case of a compressed fluid, the distance travelled and acceleration rate add to the carnage. Correct selection for your application

Whether you are replacing an existing hose, or building a new system, you’ll need to select a hose of the correct pressure rating, diameter, and length and with the best material properties for your application. Here are a few factors to consider carefully. 54

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with mechanical drives.

H Y D R A U L I C

Pressure rating— A hose must be chosen with a maximum working pressure (WP) rating that is at or preferably above the normal maximum hydraulic system pressure. Momentary pressure surges for a hydraulic system are not to exceed this pressure rating. Hose fittings that are rated below the working pressure of the selected hose cause the entire hose assembly to be derated to the lower rating of the fittings. Hoses typically become heavier for any given length, with added layers of reinforcing wire, as the working pressure requirement increases. Many of the hose models in the common 100R series have lower working pressure ratings at the larger diameters. Often a -16 (1 in.) hose has a working pressure that half of the rating for the -8 (½ in.) hose in the same product line. This can be inconvenient and costly for a machine manufacturer. Look for SAE 100R17 series compact hoses to find a constant working pressure of approximately 3000 psi for all available diameters, or consider ISO 18752 rated hoses for a constant working pressure of approxi-

mately 4000 psi for all available diameters. Many of the ISO 18752 rated hoses also feature test impulse pressure cycle ratings of 500,000. Burst pressure is a built-in safety factor for a hydraulic hose. A hose manufacturer verifies the burst pressure in a destructive test. The SAE standard J517 for the common series of 100R hydraulic hoses also categorizes leakage and also hose separation from hose fitting, as burst pressure failures. The hose does not have to violently break apart completely to have suffered a burst failure. The burst pressure rating of a hydraulic hose if often 4x the working pressure rating or greater. Inside diameter—It’s very important to use a hose of the correct inside diameter. If the diameter is too small for a given rate of flow, the linear velocity will be too high. Excessive velocity will translate into friction and turbulence, which when combined will surely result in noticeably higher system pressure and heat.

H O S E

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H Y D R A U L I C

H O S E Hose manufacturers typically supply a nomograph or a table that allows for the easy calculation of the optimum diameter for a given flow rate and hose length. Long hose lengths require a larger inner diameter to avoid excessive restriction and friction. Length â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Correct hose length needs to allow for bend-

ing and flexing as a machine moves and articulates, and to make sure that no undue stress is caused at the crimped fittings. A hose that connects in a perfectly straight path from one component to another may shrink in length up to 4% at maximum pressure. Allow this extra length when making up the hose assembly. An excessively long hose adds restriction to flow, increasing system pressure and reducing system efficiency.

Our imaginary hose from Acme has 2 layers of reinforcing braided wire.

Material â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Next, consider the conditions that a hose will

operate under. The outer layer or cover of a hose can come in a variety of synthetic rubber materials. Some compositions can help with applications where abrasion may occur but may not bend as readily. Neoprene is one popular synthetic cover material that remains flexible across a wide

The American Champ is built with quality globally sourced parts and 100% tested in the U.S.A.

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H Y D R A U L I C range of temperatures, yet handles abrasion well. Most rubber hoses perform reasonably well from –40°C (–40°F) to 100°C (212°F). Look for the date of manufacture code on any rubber hydraulic hose that you are considering. The maximum shelf life is generally ten years at the most. Where weight and space are a concern, as is often the case with mobile machines, look for hoses with a thin-wall inner tube. Advances in synthetic rubber compounds allow for higher wall strength allowing for a final product with a smaller outside diameter. Some manufacturers have moved to a reinforcement wire with an oval cross-section as opposed to round, offering additional outside diameter (O.D.) and hose weight savings. These smaller O.D. hoses, referred to as compact models in many catalogs, also offer much tighter bend radiuses. Thermoplastic hoses are generally much lighter than rubber hoses. The inner tube of copolyester or nylon is typically braided or spiral wrapped with a synthetic reinforcement fiber instead of steel. Synthetic fiber is also needed for electrically non-conductive (orange cover), aerial lift hoses. In many cases the outer cover of thermoplastic hoses will be polyurethane and provide a longer shelf life than rubber, better flexibility at low temperatures such as –60°C (–75°F), and higher resistance to UV and chemicals. Thermoplastic hoses are not always available for diameters above once inch.

H O S E

Use the hose layline to access the full hose specifications from the manufacturer’s catalog.

Hose laylines — Hoses should have their part number, pressure rating, and size stamped

along the outer cover. Industry standards and approvals will also be shown. They may also display manufacturer-specific information, such as the trade name of the specific product line. Different manufacturers will have slightly different ways of presenting this information. This strip of information is called the layline. Let’s decode this generic layline shown in the pictures. Section by section:

• ACME = Manufacturer • Jupiter = Hose Model • 170-04 = Manufacturer’s Product/Part Number (Note: dash size -04 denotes the inside diameter in 1/16” increments, ie. 4/16” or ¼”) • ¼” = Inside Diameter in Inches • 5000 PSI WP = Maximum Working Pressure

The first hose is making too tight of a corner (represented by the red circle.) The green circle indicates the minimum bend radius allowed for this hose. The second hose is correct. www.fluidpowerworld.com

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H Y D R A U L I C

H O S E

Bending and twisting — Twisting is a very serious stress that can lead to failure on most any hydraulic hose. Prevent twisting of the hose as it is installed between two ports or fittings. Pay attention to the layline to make sure that is not spiralling around the hose, as you tighten fittings. The use of fittings with swivels also helps in this regard. A hose that actively bends in two or three planes during machine motion may produce stresses and twisting that dramatically shorten hose life. Work towards single plane bends as much as possible. Brackets/support — For lengthy hydraulic hoses you may need to

install brackets or another method of support. Don’t rely on the fittings to hold a hose in the correct position. Install brackets or other means of support as necessary.

Support hoses to avoid stress on fittings, eliminate trip hazards, and prevent flailing when the hose pressurizes and contracts.

• SAE 100R2AT = SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) specification for a hose with two layers of reinforcement wire. • MSHA IC-215/0 MSHA (Mine Safety and Health Administration) approval

Information is not always presented in the same order. However, you should always find the maximum working pressure, the size, and the hose product number. The product number can be used to gather other information you’ll need from the manufacturer’s catalog and website. Ensure proper installation

So now that you’ve selected the correct hose, let’s talk about best practices for installing it. Minimum bend radius — You’ll find the minimum radius for a

hose in the product catalog. This refers to the arc that the hose follows in order to prevent restriction, damage due to kinking. Bends should not begin immediately after the hose end fitting. For example, the manufacturer’s catalog tells us that our hose has a minimum bend radius of 3.9 in. Let’s look at what this really means. Plan out the hose path to avoid tight bends. This will improve the life of your hose, and it will promote laminar (straight) flow inside of the hose. Turbulence from excessively tight bends can cause the inner tube to become eroded and damaged.

FLUID POWER WORLD

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Cleanliness — New rubber hoses need to be cleaned after they are sawn to length. Cleaning projectiles and the hands tools (guns) that propel the projectiles through the hose are more affordable than ever and pay for themselves quickly. With particle contaminants clearly identified as the leading cause of hydraulic valve malfunctions, the days of cut-and-crimp should be behind us. A freshly cut length of hydraulic hose has rubber and also metal wire particles within it. It is the sawing process that produces these particles. It takes only thirty seconds in most cases to complete the hose cleaning process before crimping the fittings onto the hose end. Thermoplastic hoses are cleaner from the start as they are cut/ sheared to length as opposed to being sawn to length. Conclusion

Using a hose with a working pressure rating that is too low is a very serious safety concern. Always err on the side of caution by choosing a hose with a working pressure rating that provides a safety margin. Burst pressure ratings should never be used to deliberately allow a system to work above the working pressure rating. If you are concerned about pressure surges, look for hoses with a high impulse cycle rating. When choosing a hose you should consider the pressure rating, temperature range, cover material and bend diameter among other factors. Before assembling a rubber hydraulic hose, clean it internally! Use brackets and supports wherever required to maintain the best hose position, and to avoid unnecessary flexing. Ensure that the hose is never forced into a tighter bend than the minimum radius allowed. Consider thermoplastic hoses for lightweight options and for tighter than normal bend radiuses. Finally, if you are not sure how to objectively sort through the information provided by a sales rep, purchase and read the standards documents (SAE, ISO, ANSI, DIN etc.) for the types of hoses you are considering. FPW

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PRODUCT WORLD

Inductive linear position sensor

Updated friction cups poster Piab piab.com

Alliance Sensors Group alliancesensors.com

Piab now offers an updated Duraflex Friction Cups poster,

The MHP-7 line of compact inductive linear

suitable for wall hanging. The poster

sensors were designed to be installed into the

shows all available suction cups with

rear endcap of hydraulic cylinders for operation

part numbers for 10 different types of fittings to

at pressures up to 5000psig. Their 1-in. hex

suit a machine’s connection. There is also a table of

aluminum or stainless steel housings are suitable

lifting forces and measurements to help guide your suction cup selection.

for mobile hydraulics, factory automation

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This line of suction cups provides grip on oily and wet surfaces. The cups’ special grip

pattern enables operators to safely and reliably move slippery metal goods without slowing

and mount to the cylinder with a standard male

production lines. These cups allow manufacturers to reduce product droppage and lower

o-ring port thread.

scrap rates. Duraflex Friction Cups have a rough cleat surface and sharp cleat edges and channels. This design creates greater friction and a stronger hold compared to traditional

Features of the MHP-7:

traction suction cups.

• No magnet required • Compact 1-in. hex aluminum or stainless

Cryoflex hydraulic hose

steel housing • Contactless- no wear from cycling or dithering

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• Ranges from 25 to 600 mm (1 to 24-in.) • Excellent stroke-to-length ratio • SenSet for field scalability of analog output

With a continuous service temperature of -57ºC (-70ºF), the Cryoflex hose line is suited for use in demanding low temperature situations. At temperatures where other hoses would rapidly begin to fail due to cracking of the rubber, Cryoflex’s incredibly low glass transition point allows it to maintain flexibility and structural integrity.

In addition, the outer cover and inner tube rubber compounds allow Cryoflex to be

“cold-fit” in maintenance situations in extremely cold environments.

The Cryoflex range is designed in accordance with the latest Isobaric standard (ISO

18752), meaning that each family has a constant pressure rating regardless of bore size, allowing for simpler, more user-friendly hose selection. With working pressures of either 21 or 35 MPa (with a 42 MPa family in development), the Cryoflex range is available in sizes DN 6 to DN 31.

FLUID POWER WORLD

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PRODUCT WORLD

Compact hydraulic actuators Bimba bimba.com The Compact Hydraulic actuator product line builds on Bimba’s NFPA hydraulic products by offering significant space savings without

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11 • 2017

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PRODUCT WORLD

Modular double valves Ross Controls rosscontrols.com Ross Controls has released the M35 Series safety exhaust (dump) valve for Category-4, PL e machine guarding applications. The safety function of the M35 Series valve is to shut off supply of pneumatic energy and to exhaust any pneumatic energy from downstream of the valve. The M35 Series double valve includes the 3/2 normally closed function, dual poppet design, and are based on the proven technology of the SERPAR Crossflow family of double valves. This new M35 Series control-reliable double valve is designed with external monitoring for safe redundant operation, and is available with or without EEZ-ON (soft start) function. The EEZ-ON (soft start) module option allows slower build-up of pressure during start-up. The M35 Series valve is enhanced with a modular mounting design, allowing flexible air entry system assembly.

The ultimate solution for eliminating leaks

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equipment. This makes integration into new and existing vacuum systems an easy and convenient solution. The low level of vibrations and noise (<55 dBA) further increases the range of potential uses, especially as a factor in ergonomic working environments.

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COMPONENT FOCUS

How are caps and plugs used to protect hydraulic systems from contamination?

Mary C. Gannon • Managing Editor

Although seemingly simple devices, protective plastic caps and plugs are critical in protecting hydraulic systems from dirt, moisture, corrosion and damage during manufacturing, shipping and storage. Experts agree that 75 to 85% of all hydraulic system failures are a result of contaminants circulating within the hydraulic system. And while this contamination can occur during operation, a great deal of it is present in components before they are even installed on a machine. Typically, reservoirs and plumbing have the highest built-in contamination levels when compared to the other components in the system. This is why protective caps and plugs are necessary.

| images courtesy of Essentra, top and Caplugs, bottom

They should be used during manufacture (including powder coating, painting, etc.), during assembly and packaging, shipping, storage, and during machine shutdowns for repair or routine maintenance. They can prevent air-born dust and dirt, welding slag, foundry sand, machining chips, and other contaminants from entering a system through ports and fittings. When selecting the materials for your cap or plug choice, one must consider the application where they will be used. Caps and plugs are available in a number of materials, including polyethylene, vinyl, silicone, and rubber. Pick the material that meets all system needs—UV resistance, temperature and pressure considerations, corrosive fluids or lubricants, etc. They are designed to protect flared and flareless hydraulic fittings, SAE O-ring ports, JIC threads, BSP threads, NPT threads, Metric www.fluidpowerworld.com

FPW 11-17_Component Focus_Vs3 MG.indd 63

threads, quick-release couplings, hoses, SAE threads, flanges, valves, and more. Caps and plugs can be manufactured with the following attributes: threaded, non-threaded, straight wall, tapered, teartab, pull-tab, and metric. For example, if protecting threads on a fitting, a threaded plug should be chosen. And pull-tabs simplify removal. They are available in a variety of colors to match system needs. These materials are also available for masking during finishing processes, such as plating, anodizing, powder coating, painting, etc. These extreme environments (corrosive materials, high temperatures) will require a suitable material choice. For example, silicone offers high heat resistance. Finally, not only do caps and plugs protect systems from contamination but they also improve productivity and improve costs during production. FPW

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d. Nonrequested (2) Distribution (By Mail d. and NonreOutside quested (2) the Mail) Distribution (3) (By Mail and Outside the Mail) (4) (3) e. f.

12,611

11,407

11,342

11,407

11,342

582

649

Outside County Nonrequested Copies Stated on PS Form 3541 (include Sample copies, Requests Over 3 years old, Requests induced by a In-County Stated on PSAssociation Form 3541 Requests, (include Premium, Nonrequested Bulk Sales andCopies Requests including Sample copies, Requests Over 3Directories, years old, Requests by a Names obtained from Business Lists, and induced other sources) Premium, Bulk Sales and Requests including Association Requests, Names obtained from Business Directories, Lists, and other sources) In-County Nonrequested Copies Stated on PS Form 3541 (include Sample copies, Requests Over 3 years old, Requests induced by a Nonrequested Distributed Through theAssociation USPS by Other Classes of Premium, BulkCopies Sales and Requests including Requests, Mail (e.g. First-Class Nonrequestor Copies in excess of 10% Names obtained fromMail, Business Directories, Lists,mailed and other sources) Limit mailed at Standard Mail® or Package Services Rates) Nonrequested (Include Pickup Stands, Nonrequested Copies Copies Distributed Distributed Outside Throughthe theMail USPS by Other Classes of Trade Shows, Showrooms Other Sources) Mail (e.g. First-Class Mail, and Nonrequestor Copies mailed in excess of 10% Limit mailed at Standard Mail® or Package Services Rates)

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285

869

12,274

12,211

338

WITH US!

400

12,612

12,611

92.9%

Lillbacka USA ............................. IBC Main Manufacturing .................... 4 Murrelektronic ........................... 13 NitroSteel, LLC ............................ 45 NOSHOK, Inc. ............................. 21 O+P SrL ....................................... 47 OEM Controls, Inc. ..................... 62 Peninsular Cylinder .................... 35 Permco ....................................... 56 PHD Inc. ...................................... 48 Prince Manufacturing Corp. ...... 14 ROSS Controls ............................ 49 Rota Engineering Ltd. ................. 61 RYCO Hydraulics ......................... 39 Servo Kinetics ............................. 23 SIKO Products ............................. 55 Spartan Scientific ....................... 32 Stauff Corporation ..................... 11 Super Swivels ............................... 2 Tompkins Industries ............... IFC,4 Veljan Hydrair LTD ...................... 34

CONNECT

220

867

Aggressive Hydraulics .................. 7 Aignep USA ............................ 21,51 AMETEK APT-FA .......................... 25 AMETEK DFS ............................... 27 Anderson Metals ........................ 28 AutomationDirect ........................ 1 Brennan Industries ....................... 3 Canfield Industries ..................... 51 CD Industrial Group ................... 59 Clippard ...................................... BC Compact Automation Products . 50 DEL Hydraulics ............................ 40 DMIC .......................................... 16 Doering ....................................... 29 Fabco-Air ..........................15,17,19 Flaretite ...................................... 62 FluiDyne Fluid Power ................... 5 Gefran ........................................ 41 HAWE Hydraulik ........................... 9 Hy-Pro Filtration ......................... 33 Hyde Tools, Inc. .......................... 13 Kraft Fluid Systems, Inc ............ 46

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