Hydraulics are used profusely in steel production because they offer the power density, precision and most importantly, imperviousness to heat required in this harsh environment. By Josh Cosford, Contributing Editor Perhaps more than any other industry in North America, the steel industry experiences the slacks of the economic tide, albeit at a more glacial pace.…

Companies of all stripes are hyping the wonders of “intelligent” components and the bright future of IoT and Industry 4.0 at this year’s Hannover Fair. Parker Hannifin has seemingly set itself a bit apart from the pack in that it is pushing the envelope in terms of technology developments – but always with the needs…

This article is the third in my series on hydraulic symbology, this time going beyond the basics to discuss symbols in higher detail. If you haven’t read Hydraulic Symbology 101 and Hydraulic Symbology 102, please click the links and read them first to gain the basics required for this article. If your basics are sound,…

How to maintain uptime in difficult conditions. Contributed by Chris Heberlein, Sales Director – Machine & Plant Engineering, Balluff Inc., Florence, Ky. Reliability is always important in the hydraulics industry and maintaining uptime can be especially challenging in the rugged and hostile applications typical of sawmills, foundries, steel mills and mobile machines. For fluid power…

Last night, at the LEAP Awards dinner gala in Costa Mesa, Calif., 11 winners were announced for the first annual awards competition. In the Fluid Power category, Eaton Corp.’s boom stability control (BSC) system garnered the highest award. As reported last month, Eaton’s BSC technology reduces hydraulic boom oscillation by up to 75% and boom…

Accumulators are pressurized vessels that hold fluid under pressure. This stored energy can be called upon to boost energy to a system when needed, then recharged to store it again. This stored energy can be dangerous; proper care should be taken to ensure pressure and temperatures are kept under control. Several small yet critical accessories…

Elastomer seals are built to handle a wide range of demanding hydraulic and pneumatic applications. A seal’s design and its material properties are two keys to lasting performance. The engineers at Parker Hannifin’s Engineered Materials Group in Germany also offer some important recommendations on how to store, handle and clean seals prior to use. Dr. […]

Understanding what can go wrong ensures that hydraulic pumps get built right. Every OEM says it wants quality, but the reality is that machine builders can choose from countless hydraulic components that vary widely in performance and price—from cheap, “throw-away” parts to high-quality and, more-expensive, products that are built to last. How does an engineer […]

The history of labor unions dates to the late 1800s when employees worked in often wretched conditions with little or no regard paid by employers for safety, fair wages and reasonable workaday hours. It’s hard to argue the level of productivity achieved prior to the amelioration of unions, and some would wager the great railroads…

Innovation in pneumatics is often found in the way components are put together to create subsystems, instead of within the components. Contributed by Pat Phillips, PE, Product Manager for AutomationDirect, Fluid Power and Mechanical Product Div.   Pneumatics have been used in industrial machines and manufacturing plants and facilities for decades, so most of the […]

By Josh Cosford, Contributing Editor The type of pump you choose for your power unit affects the nature of the HPU build. Pump choice boils down to cost, complexity and performance. There are three major types of pumps: the gear pump, the vane pump and the piston pump. There are other, less common pumps, but […]

At this week’s AICD annual conference in San Antonio, Holly G. Green of The Human Factor Inc. gave a fascinating talk about our brains, and how we can retrain them to work better on the job. While the world has evolved at amazing speed over the last decade and the last century, our brains really…

This year’s Fluid Power Technology Conference opened last night with a VIP dinner, and the evening’s keynote speaker gave an interesting and impassioned talk. Natalie Bell, the President of Aladdin Engineering & Manufacturing and Aladco, spoke about the companies’ history as well as some of the current challenges that manufacturers are facing today. Bell stressed…

MJC Engineering is a custom machine tool builder in Huntington Beach, Calif. that specializes in metal-spinning machines for applications such as sheet spinning, flow forming, wheel spinning and rotary forging. The company’s machines produce end products such as car wheels, aircraft engine housings, spacecraft fuel tanks, and welding gas cylinders. They typically use very large…

This week’s Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston is a milestone event. The first OTC was held 50 years ago—May 19-21, 1969 in Houston. The conference has been held in Houston each year since and grown annually in terms of size as well as worldwide participation. OTC 2018 opened with a series of special events…

Industry 4.0 is often much closer than we think: While individual suppliers offer proprietary solutions for networking of machine peripherals and better utilization of data, there are established and open standards that do exactly the same thing. IO-Link is supported by approximately 150 companies and enables digital communication of peripherals with control in parallel to common field buses. With proportional…

Price Engineering, a SunSource Co., will be showcasing Sawyer, a collaborative robot from Rethink Robotics, at this year’s Fluid Power Technology Conference at the Milwaukee School of Engineering. Attendees can meet Sawyer in the Price Engineering booth #105. With the ability to work 24/7 through 3 shifts, this ‘worker’ is easy to train, a fast…

Engineers take a novel, low-risk approach to marine propulsion with a hydraulic hybrid design. Much like the trend in mobile-equipment markets over the last decade, shipbuilders and their suppliers have made steady, incremental improvements in terms of vessel performance, fuel efficiency and lower emissions. Many in the marine industry are now pushing the next wave…

Next month, as part of the 3rd annual Fluid Power Technology Conference, our own Managing Editor, Mary Gannon, will moderate a session on Women in Fluid Power. This powerhouse panel will include Caryes Allan, VP, Higginson Equipment; Céline Cabana, Technical Account Manager, FD-GROUPS America; Dr. H.C. Monika Ivantysynova, Maha Professor Fluid Power Systems, Director, Maha…

Overlooking these common causes of hydraulic system contamination could mean catastrophic machine failure. Vigilance is key in maintaining a clean machine. By Carl Dyke. CD Industrial Group Inc. I picture several things when I think of a mobile hydraulic system malfunction: damaged control wiring and connectors a scored valve spool stuck in place a pressure valve […]

MJC Engineering is a custom machine tool builder in Huntington Beach, Calif., specializing in metal-spinning machines for sheet spinning, flow forming, wheel spinning and others. MJC machines typically use large volumes of hydraulic power in operation. About three years ago, the president at MJC, Carl Lorentzen, began investigating the configuration of the hydraulic units used…

Sourcing one-piece Hydraulic Integrated Circuit (HIC) Custom Manifold solutions from Daman Products helped a machine builder eliminate 39 leak points and reduce labor hours, number of components, and over-all costs by 11%. Several years ago, Daman had a project where this machine builder specified standard components for a manifold consisting of six-station D05H manifolds, three-station […]

Cold cylinder start-up hydraulic seal testing is the latest in Hallite’s third-party validation for the integrity of its sealing materials and designs. After successful completion of a new test method in 2015 for assessing the amount of dirt and dust that enters a typical hydraulic system through the rod wiper, Hallite Seals decided to continue […]

Machine builders are now dealing with outside influences in their designs more and more as manufacturers must meet size, environmental and pricing needs. Sizing down With tighter tolerances and smaller machine footprints, miniaturization becomes crucial to the components that go inside of them. This is especially true in machine automation and robotics, where motions must…

I had a very interesting tour of the IFAS (Institute for Fluid Power Drives and Systems) research labs, as part of the 11th IFK Fluid Power Conference in Aachen, Germany. IFAS, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary, is also undergoing a large change at the top, with a new leader. “It’s a very interesting time…