Why a hydraulic repair test rig is essential in repairing plant hydraulics
Hydraulic plant machinery is the lifeblood of many businesses in the construction, engineering, manufacturing, agricultural and defence industries. Machinery which relies on hydraulic systems serves many of the most vital day-to-day functions in these businesses. Without hydraulic plant machinery they would not be able to function.
As with any type of machinery or equipment, industrial or otherwise, failures happen and things can go wrong from time to time. Because of the nature of hydraulic systems, breakdowns are often not as easy to diagnose or fix as many other machinery systems. Equally, as hydraulic systems perform essential operations for many businesses, machinery down time as a result of breakdowns can be very costly.
The most important piece of equipment in the plant hydraulics repair process is a hydraulic repair test rig. It allows the repair engineers to understand what is happening within the hydraulic system in minute detail and ensures that the machinery is safe for use afterwards. Below we’ll run through how hydraulic repair test rigs work and why they are so important.
What does a hydraulic repair test rig do?
When a piece of hydraulic plant machinery suffers a breakdown, the first priority is to ascertain what exactly has gone wrong. In a complex system with multiple pumps, motors, hydraulic lines and electrical systems, it’s important to know what has caused the machinery to fail.
While the hydraulic system forms the functional basis of hydraulic plant machinery, it works in tandem with a host of other electrical, mechanical and computer systems. Any breakdown could be a combination of issues in a number of different systems at once. To fully understand the details of a failure in the hydraulic system, a hydraulic repair test rig is needed.
Once the technicians know where the fault lies within the system, they can get started on the repair process. A hydraulic repair test rig allows issues to be diagnosed with an infinitely higher degree of accuracy than manual diagnosis. The hydraulic repair test rig is also used to confirm that the system is in full working order after the repairs have been carried out. This is vital to ensure that a similar failure does not occur once the hydraulic plant has been returned to service.
How does a hydraulic repair test rig work?
A hydraulic repair test rig works by measuring and monitoring the various functional parameters of a hydraulic system. This includes values such as pressure, flow, temperature, pump/motor rpm and vibrations. By monitoring these parameters and combining the data, the hydraulic repair test rig can build a detailed impression of the hydraulic system’s performance in various scenarios.
Depending on the power rating of the hydraulic system being tested, a larger hydraulic repair test rig may be required to assess the system at full capacity. The hydraulic systems used in most plant machinery will not require a specialised test rig because they are not as powerful as many of the largest static systems.
Hydraulic test rigs can also be used to monitor the continued performance of a hydraulic system over its lifetime by logging details of each hydraulic performance test. By monitoring value changes in the system, pre-emptive action can be taken when the data suggests a certain component in the system is becoming worn or underperforming.
Why is a hydraulic repair test rig so important?
Plant hydraulic systems are complex, expensive and, above all, vital for the smooth operation of many businesses. When something goes wrong with a hydraulic system, it’s rarely ever a quick, on-site repair job. To protect the investment which has been sunk into the machinery, accurate and reliable diagnosis of issues is a top priority. If issues are not diagnosed or repairs carried out properly, the risk of subsequent issues and plant downtime in the future is massively increased.
A hydraulic repair test rig allows technicians to run automated assessments of a hydraulic system’s performance under a variety of different scenarios. Being able to test the system with many different load and flow variations allows them to detect and deal with issues which may not at first be fully apparent.
This is just as important for maintenance of hydraulic plant machinery as it is for repairing it. Faults found early are cheaper to repair than faults found after failure. Additionally, the more pieces of hydraulic plant machinery a business owns, the better return on investment renting a hydraulic repair test rig will provide.
Having a test rig on hand for a fleet of plant machines means that any outages can be dealt with as they happen. In this case, the test rig rental more than pays for itself. At the same time, a hydraulic repair test rig is still essential for diagnosing and repairing a fault in any piece of hydraulic plant machinery. Even if your company only owns one such piece of equipment, the cost of using a hydraulic test rig when repairs are needed more than pays for itself when it comes to getting the plant machinery back into operation.
If you would like to know more about hydraulic repair test rigs and the many ways they can benefit your business, please get in touch with CJ Plant today.
