Fixing Vibration In High-Pressure Hydraulic Lines

Problem: Things that happen in your home can happen at your work too. For example, water pipes in your house get fluid spikes when you quickly open or close the faucet on your sink, and if the pipes are not secure, they will rattle. Hydraulic lines in factories, mines and mills experience similar spikes caused by varying pressure, pump speed or pulsating flows, all of which produce vibrations.

When hydraulic lines are mounted to walls, floors or ceilings, the unwanted vibrations are absorbed into the structure.

Steps have been made to correct this by mounting hard rubber or poly guides to a guide rail and running the hydraulic line through these guides. Unfortunately, the guides only handle a small range of vibrations, which leads to the next problem, where now the whole guide rail vibrates.

Henkel AG & Co. which manufactures cleaning products, detergents, personal care products, as well as Loctite sealants and adhesives, was experiencing hydraulic line vibrations. Even though its hydraulic lines were insulated to guide rails, those guide rails unfortunately transferred vibrations to the structures to which they were mounted. Solution: To combat the problems, Henkel installed Rosta Type V 27 vibration dampening mounts between the building’s structure and the guide rails, which reduced the vibrations by as much as 95%.

The mounts absorb vibrations in all three axes (x, y and z)– so they are suitable for wall, floor or ceiling mounting.

Mr. O’s thanks for this tip go to Lovejoy Inc. (www.lovejoy-inc.com).

Do you have a solution for a maintenance problem? Send it in and if it’s published, we’ll send you a Mr. O Problem Solver T-shirt. Include your address, telephone number, print complete details and, if possible, add a sketch to help explain your tip. Send your tips to Mr. O, Machinery & Equipment MRO, 12 Concorde Place, Suite 800, Toronto, ON M3C 4J2.