Low-cost Solutions for Detecting and Removing Free Water from Hydraulic Oils

摘要

Water ingress is an important factor which can cause severe damage in hydraulic and lube oil circuits. Water contamination leads to hydrolysis of the fluid, chemical reactions with the oil additives, reduced service life of the oil, reduced lubricating film strength, increased component wear, corrosion of metal parts and reduced service life of filters. Finally, premature component failure and system downtime causes high maintenance costs which could have been easily avoided by immediate water detection. How do you know when there is a water contamination problem? Oil analysis, visual inspection, water sensor? Removing the detected water from oils can be accomplished through a number of vastly different technologies. In addition to the cost intensive vacuum dehydrators, low-cost solutions exist; water absorption and coalescers, which can protect your system reliably from water related system failures.