6 Tips to save hose maintenance
If your industry requires hose usage regularly, then you need to pay close attention to its maintenance. Here are some useful tips to help you save on hose maintenance.
From car breaks to subsea pumping stations, hydraulic hoses constituted an integral part of machinery construction. Even with proper selection and installation of hydraulic hoses, adverse environmental conditions and stress on the hoses cause wear and tear of the hoses with time. So, a proper maintenance program is important for identifying and fixing their failures. Here I present to you 6 tips for proper hose maintenance: -
1. Inspection: Inspect the whole assembly regularly for any fitting slippage, damage, crack or cut, etc. There can other issues like corroded fittings, leaks at a fitting or in a hose, crushed, flattened or twisted hose and blistered soft, degraded, or lose cover. Fitting slippage can be caused due to hose clamps not being of proper size. Ensure the hose clamp manufacturers and hose clamp suppliers provide you with precisely measured hose clamps.
If something is discovered, then corresponding actions like preparing correcting tightening replacement must be done.
- Functional tests: These tests should also be from time to time to check for possible leaks and malfunctions. These include operating the system at maximum operating pressure while looking for malfunctions and leak. Proper care must be taken to ensure that peak pressure does not reach above the published maximum working pressure and that hazardous areas are avoided.
- Hose assemblies and Elastomeric seals replacement: These are comprised of a material that age, harden, wear and deteriorate with time due to continuously being under thermal cycling and compression set. Thus, these hose assemblies and elastomeric seals need to be checked and replaced at regular intervals.
- Identifying the source of the leak: Finding the source of a leak is a very difficult task due to hoses being buried within machines and are mostly found in tight spaces and around difficult corners.
For easily identifying the source of the leak, one can follow the steps:
Clean and dry the machine where the league might be coming from
Pressurized the system
While putting on your safety goggles recognize where the fluid is coming from.
Also, sometimes water running down a loose knot at the end of the hoses might look like a leak. Make sure to check that carefully and tighten if it comes out to be a loose knot instead of a leaking hose.
6. Replacement of the hoses: For replacing the leaking holes with new ones, the first step would be to remove the old one. For easy removal of the hoses, remove hose clamps and custom fittings attached to the hose and remove the hose from that side, and then quickly fit the hydraulic cap into the exposed fitting. Repeat the same set of steps for the other side as well, and your work is done.
While attaching the new hose, make sure there is no doubt or debris is inside. Clean the new horse with compressed air if something is found inside.
Well, these were a few tips from my side for easy maintenance of hydraulic hoses. Make sure to put them to use next time you work with hoses.
In India, Circlips group is the leader in manufacturing various machinery fittings like Shims, Dowell pins, E-pins and all other types along with Hose clamps. The group was established in 1967 in has been manufacturing quality products since then.