Modern Mining October 2021

Tinus Vermeulen, national project sales manager at HYDAC South Africa.

Izak Lombaard, project engineer at HYDAC South Africa.

Dustin Pereira, engineer at HYDAC.

elements in the conditioning leg com- prise the following: Reservoir/sump design: High performance systems may require the oil to return to the reservoir through a basket strainer in order to remove any larger particles that may be picked up during equip- ment operation that can cause

In order to design a successful lubrication system, says Pereira, it is imperative that oil cleanliness and contaminant levels are maintained within a tight ISO tolerance rating. The equipment requiring lubrication is kept within a strict temperature range to maximise efficiencies and prevent breakdown of the lubrica- tion oil. Returning oil is capable of indicating the health status of the machinery and can therefore be used as an early warning mechanism for predictive maintenance, thus preventing serious damage and downtime to plant equipment. “When it comes to the health status of machin- ery, there is need for early warning mechanisms to prevent serious damage to plant equipment. HYDAC has a line of products for conditioning and monitor- ing of lubricating systems on various ranges of plant equipment. For example, our screw pumps allow for large viscosity oils and large flow rates to be pumped without cavitation, while offering a higher dirt toler- ance when compared with various other positive displacement pumps. These pumps run quietly and with low ripple and can incorporate internal pressure bypass valves to protect equipment from overpres- sure spikes,” explains Pereira. Where slipper pads require jacking, adds Pereira, HYDAC also has a range of high-pressure multi- outlet pumps capable of providing each pad with its own supply of oil, and not rely on problematic flow dividers. Each line can be individually monitored and settings adjusted for drive end and non-drive end jacking force requirements. Oil conditioning Oil conditioning is key to lubrication systems, and is therefore one of the key focus areas for HYDAC. Pereira explains that the oil in most applications is only gravity fed back to a sump/reservoir. This oil therefore does not have the effective head or pressure to allow for efficient filtration or cooling. Consequently, a reservoir must be designed to allow for oil to return under gravity and for conditioning before feedback to the plant equipment. Some key

damage to the lubrication system. The basket strainer is made of stainless steel and is washable/serviceable.

HYDAC’s CSM 1000 metallic

The reservoir design, stresses Pereira, is key to allow for settling of

contamination sensor, an online condition monitoring system for the continuous measurement of solid particle contamination in hydraulic and lubrication fluids.

the oil. It must have compartments to allow for the settled particles to be removed during maintenance. The settling compartment is therefore separated into an intermediate section to allow for oil to be circulated through a large capacity filter and heat exchanger, before returning the conditioned oil to the ‘clean’ compartment. The clean compartment ensures that the jacking pumps are exposed to the filtered oil before supplying it back to the bearing. The reservoir allows for monitoring of the oil level, temperature and cleanliness. cycles and in most instances under dif- f i c u l t c ond i t i on s , whereby wear particu- lates are washed away by the conditioning oil. To ensure the longevity of the moving compo- nents, the lubricating oil must be replenished with fresh, clean and cool oil. To remove particulates from the oil, high efficiency Conditioning of the oil: This is a key process in the lubrication process. Plant equipment operates at high duty

HYDAC’s HFT 2100 flow transmitter is used for monitoring the flow rate of systems with viscous fluids.

October 2021  MODERN MINING  25