Hydraulic circuits require high levels of hygiene to work efficiently in whatever task that they are undertaking. However, given that all the parts are made of iron and alloys, small debris becomes dislodged from the walls of the circuit and into the oil or the hydraulic fluid. This debris ends up clogging other parts of the circuit, reducing is efficiency or grounding the system altogether. There are several ways you can protect the circuit from debris. Here are a few of them.
Contamination Monitoring System
Automatic particle counters are tools meant to determine the contaminant levels in a hydraulic system. With the tools, you can measure particles of various sizes within a short period. Moreover, most of the systems can also detect significant increases in the particle amounts in the fluid. With the information, you can take the right measures to clean out all the particles. The systems are automatic and very effective. The inline ones can be mounted on the system that is undergoing analysis. You can go for a standalone system or one controlled by an external computer. If you find that your system has high particle levels, you can use the following.
Hydraulic filters
Hydraulic filters are commonly used to filter out particles that may be in the hydraulic oil. The filters work on metal particles that are more than a micron in size. When such particles are left in the circuit, they tend to accelerate the degradation. The filters come in three types, the low-pressure filters, heavy-duty filters and standard pressure filters. Each of the filters either works as a suction, spin-on and return line filters. There are also duplex filters for the heavy-duty hydraulic systems. These filters work continuously, removing the debris and must be emptied as regularly as possible. Others are used on a one-off basis but are not more effective than the continuous systems.
Magnetic Filtration
Magnetic filters have a magnetic core for attracting the metal particles and removing them from the fluid. Note that magnetic filters can remove very small ferrous particles that would otherwise go through the conventional barrier filtration systems. A good number of such particles are to blame for increased wear and tear in many hydraulic moving parts, given that they are hard to filter.
The magnetic core is housed between two metal housings that are able to multiply the magnetic power of the core by seven times, making the whole unit a very powerful magnet. It is an in-line high-pressure circuit protection unit that is able to pull even the very small unit far from its position. Moreover, some have several flow channels that increase the surface area from which the magnetic core attracts the ferrous materials. Unlike the conventional filters, these channels are always open even when there are lots of ferrous materials in the fluid.
It is important to clean the hydraulic circuit of the ferrous deposit that plague the unit with regular use. It helps cut down the cost of repair and maintenance and also helps slow down the wear and tear.
