Hydraulic cylinders come in many different shapes and sizes, and are built to serve many purposes. Whilst in most cases, cylinders are designed to suit a specific application, they are not always built to suit a specific environment. Whether it’s iron ore, nickel, gold or bauxite, each environment presents a unique range of variables which may affect the service life of your cylinder.
Here at Callcott & Downey Engineering, we have had a lot of success working alongside Reliability Engineers from Mining Contractors and Mining Companies to determine causes of hydraulic cylinder failure. Hypersalinity, flyrock, heat, dust, incorrect surface finishes and even operator error can significantly reduce cylinder service life. Common failures include corrosion, pressure spiking, snapping, cracking and seal failures.
Our Failure Analysis service is an analysis of hydraulic cylinder failure at a far higher level than a typical strip and assess. By performing an analysis, we can offer our opinion and compile a report as to the cause of cylinder failure. This may be to satisfy an insurance claim, to solve a dispute or to determine why cylinders are failing prematurely.
For premature failures, we may also be able to make suggestions and work alongside you to engineer out the vulnerabilities. Our experience and our access to the toughest grades of material puts us in the perfect position to modify cylinders to enjoy an extended service life. Forged components, surface protection, different materials and protective bellows are just some of the modifications we have available.
Do you have a cylinder which isn’t meeting it’s predicted hours? Do you feel your cylinder should be lasting longer? Is your cylinder costing you a fortune in downtime and change outs? If you can answer YES to any of the above, then you should send you cylinder to Callcott’s and ask us about our Failure Analysis services and how we can help.
