Fluid Power Journal

How to Determine Hydraulic Pump Condition Using Volumetric Efficiency

Hydraulic pumps convert mechanical energy into hydraulic energy. A high-performance piston pump can make this conversion with an overall efficiency of 92%. If …

2017 Photo Contest Winners

The Photo Contest was created to celebrate the wonder of fluid power and the talented professionals who work in the industry. This year’s contest resulted …

Pressure & Vacuum in Print

In the printing industry, vacuum and low-pressure air is used extensively in the sheet feeding heads of web offset printing presses (Fig. 1). These presses …

We’re Hiring!

The Fluid Power Journal is searching for an editor. The editor is a flexible position and although the ideal candidate would be someone physically working from …

How to Correctly Interpret Case Drain Flows in Hydrostatic Transmissions

When a pump or motor is worn or damaged, internal leakage increases and therefore the flow available to do useful work decreases. This means that the condition …

The Real Value Of Hydraulic Circuit Diagrams

Like many readers of this Journal, I’m regularly involved in troubleshooting problems with hydraulic equipment. When in these situations, there are two …

Changing a Vacuum Cup

Vacuum cups are used throughout industry for so many applications that the list would take up most of this page. Fundamentally, vacuum cups are used to grip a …

Vacuum Basics

By Richard Throop, CFPS Vacuum often seems like a mystery or “black art,” but vacuum is actually quite simple. When we talk about vacuum, we are talking …

Use Protection

Centralized vacuum systems, where a single vacuum generator is used (Fig. 1 and Fig. 2), more often than not utilize a single vacuum filter. These two systems …

Proactive Maintenance 101: Define Your TOW!

The most important proactive maintenance exercise you can do for a piece of hydraulic equipment is to define its temperature operating window (TOW) and then …