Extending the life-cycle of hydraulic cylinders reduces costs. Depending on the role of the hydraulic cylinder, these costs can be significant. Costs associated with downtime in production and the replacement parts can be reduced in frequency with the following 4 recommendations.
1. Enquire about Bespoke design
It is often said as many as 1 in 4 hydraulic rams are inadequately designed for the desired application. This doesn’t mean cylinders won’t perform the task at hand but can dramatically increase repair and maintenance costs as well as compromise safety aspects. Problems created by inadequately designed cylinders include bent rods, ballooned tubes and unsuitable rod finish. By tailoring cylinders to your exact specifications and application instead of making ‘fit’ an unsuitable “off the shelf” cylinder you can expect excellent performance, unique and innovative designs and ex-tended cylinder life.
2. Apply a protective coating
Hard chrome plating (HCP) has been the industry standard for cylinder protection since the middle of the 20th century. Whilst HCP assists in extending cylinder life-spans, superior alternatives are available.
COREX (by Apex Hydraulics) outperforms HCP on hardness, porosity, pressure, density, environmental and ecological metrics. COREX’s hardness, up to 1400Hv, provides excellent bond strength of <10,000psi compared to HCP 750-850HV, <5000psi. Impact damage which dents the substrate and in turn leads to cracking and peeling of the coating is more than halved with COREX.
3. Invest in an efficient Maintenance schedule
Having an active preventative maintenance plan in place is invaluable in prolonging the life and effectiveness of your crucial cylinders/rams. By identifying problems before they occur and administering maintenance at the most opportune moment in your cylinders life, efficient maintenance schedules can save enormously on the costly downtime associated with cylinder failure.
4. Ensure you have clean oil
Hydraulic system performance is intrinsically linked to oil contamination levels. Contaminated oil can manifest itself in various ways including tank corrosion, pump failure, blocked filters and damaged components. Oil becomes contaminated by moisture and particles. Installing a suitable oil filtration system can extend hydraulic oil up to 10 times as well as reducing machine and component wear.
