Equipment World Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/389791
October 2014 | EquipmentWorld.com 56 Contamination control is the key Because of the impact of contami- nants on equipment life, contami- nation control should be an impor- tant component of any preventive maintenance program. The first place to start is keeping particles and moisture out in the first place. Particles and moisture enter ma- chines from two main areas: seals and air breathers. For engines, more than 95 percent of contami- nation comes from the air intake to the engine. For this reason, air-intake manifolds and air filters must be properly maintained. Even with proper care and maintenance, however, silt-sized particles will get through air filters, particularly when you understand that for ev- ery gallon of fuel burned, upwards of 10,000 gallons of air is pulled into an engine. Once a particle enters an engine, the impact can be devastating. Even with the best full-flow oil filter, more than 1 billion 5 micron particles may still be present in the oil because most full-flow filters have little to no capture efficiency below 8 to 10 microns. The key is to use supplemental bypass filtration. Bypass filtration involves installing a supplemen- tal filter after the full-flow filter to direct 5 to 10 percent of the oil flow through a fine (1-3 um) depth media filter. These types of sys- tems have been proven to improve fluid cleanliness in engines by as much as 32 to 64 times, resulting in a twofold to fourfold extension in engine rebuild life, in some in- stances in excess of 50,000 operat- ing hour. maintenance | continued Bypass engine oil filtration can extend engine rebuild life by as much as two to four times. In hydraulics, particles and mois- ture enter the system through the air breather, fill port or rod/ cylinder wiper seals. Again, these problems are easy to ad- dress. For rods/cylinders, even with a well-maintained dust/ wiper seal, particles and mois- tures that alight on an extended rod surface can be drawn into the hydraulic fluid as the rod retracts back into the cylinder. One simple way to prevent this is to use rod boots, expand- able bellows that are attached to the outside of the cylinder and expand and contract as the rod moves out and in While older versions of rod boots didn't stand up to the aggressive nature of construction, modern boots fabricated from Kevlar and other strong materials are far better suited and a great solution.