By Dr. Ir. Peter Blok and Jim Fitch
PT Werktuigbouw
Water in a hydraulic system constitutes a serious form of oil contamination. However, water contamination is rarely recognized as such, hardly understood, and, until recently, considered difficult to combat. The damage caused by water is usually attributed to other causes. Water often interacts with other types of contamination. It causes both degradation of the hydraulic oil and damage to the hydraulic components, which reinforce each other. In the past, the filtration of hydraulic oil was solely aimed at removing solid particles. The hydraulic industry has therefore made great progress over the last twenty years in applying and maintaining well-designed filtration of solid particles from hydraulic oil. However, the recent introduction of water-removing filters seems destined to shift the focus in the management of hydraulic oil contamination.