What is a Hydraulic System?

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Hydraulic systems are all around us on a daily basis. They’re used in vehicles, construction equipment, buildings, and manufacturing facilities. Hydraulics are one of the most efficient ways to create movement when heavy loads are involved or a repetitive motion is needed.

Hydraulic systems in their simplest form are simply a system that uses pressurized fluid to accomplish a task. Simple hydraulic systems have been used even in ancient times but were limited to open systems using gravity to create pressure. Hydraulic systems were revolutionized by the introduction of the pump with which high pressures could be created quickly and easily. The first pump powered hydraulic systems revolutionized how hydraulics were used and used water as the working fluid. Systems like this ranged from small systems to operate a single component to systems spanning an entire city as part of a public utility to operate machinery in multiple factories.

A second major jump in hydraulic systems happened when oil was used as the working fluid rather than water. Using oil as the working fluid in a hydraulic system has a lot of advantages. First, rather than causing corrosion, oil actually inhibits corrosion of metal components used in hydraulic equipment. Oils are also a natural lubricant so it can help keep temperatures and wear down in your system. Lastly, oils have a much higher boiling point than water so it can operate in machinery that experiences high temperatures during use.

These advances have created the modern hydraulic system you see at work today in equipment you may use at home or in your business. Hydraulic systems allow significant loads to be easily moved by the equipment operator, as well as repetitive movements to happen accurately over and over again. As electric motors, servos, and magnetic systems have advanced in technology and lowered in price some systems have started to convert their method of articulation to electronic devices but there is still no replacement for a robust and well maintained hydraulic system.

Maintaining your hydraulic system is the key to ensuring it lasts you a long time and ends up being a cost-effective means of accomplishing the tasks of your home or business. Since the hydraulic oil is the most important part your system, our focus will be on maintaining your hydraulic fluid.

First, make sure you’ve got the right hydraulic fluid in your system. Ensuring the hydraulic oil you use has the correct viscosity and additives is the best way to make sure your equipment runs properly for a long time. You don’t have to change the oil in your hydraulic system as often as you would say in your engine, but it still does get dirty and breakdown after time. Keeping track of the hours on your equipment is a quick and easy way to determine how often you should change your hydraulic fluid. If you want to get the maximum life from hydraulic oil you can even sample it and send it off for analysis to have it tested for breakdown and presence of wear particles.

Once you’re sure you’ve got the right kind of oil and it’s that oil is in good condition you need to check for leaks in your system to make sure you don’t lose the good oil you just added. The most common places you’ll find leaks in a hydraulic system is around the pump shaft, at piston seals, around the control valves or at the hose connections. Hydraulic hoses are often easily accessible and relatively inexpensive to replace, but the other leak points can prove tricky and costly to fix.

If you find a hydraulic oil leak at a pump or piston seal you can use BlueDevil Hydraulic Stop Leak to seal the leak. Simply add BlueDevil Hydraulic Stop Leak to your hydraulic fluid reservoir and it will seal your leaks over the next few hours of operation. BlueDevil Hydraulic Stop Leak won’t change the properties of your hydraulic oil or harm your system in any way, but it will restore the seals in your system stopping the leak and getting your equipment back to proper operation.