Hydraulic Accumulators: Maintenance Significance

Accumulators are an integral part of a hydraulic system. These render a number of advantages to the regular hydraulic system operations yet they are a maintenance item and hence, call for proper maintenance time to time. Also the periodic inspection, testing and certification required by the law-accumulators need to be followed properly.

Careful Maintenance

There are a number of things which should be taken care of while working with a hydraulic accumulator. At times when the gas end of the bladder or the diaphragm accumulator is being charged, the nitrogen gas needs to be admitted very slowly into the bladder. The entry of rapid expansion of high-pressure nitrogen into the bladder should be avoided as it can lead to chilling the bladder's polymeric material to such an extent that there is a risk of immediate brittle failure. In fact rapid pre-charging of bladder can also lead the bladder placed under the poppet at the oil end to cut.

In case the minimum system pressure of the bladder is reduced without an equal or corresponding reduction in pre-charge pressure, it would directly effect the accumulator operations or even lead to the damage to bladder. Hence, the pressure within th e bladder should be looked after thoroughly.

Stick to the Standards

Next important thing to remember is to make sure that the hydraulic accumulators are manufactured, tested and certified as per the statutory standards and parameters. The pieces which do not match up to these pre-defined standards, are marked and considered as sub-standard material. The relevant standards differ according to the geographic differences all over the world. For example, in US the relevant standard is ASME Boiler & Pressure Vessel Code VIII, Division 1. Each and every pressure vessel made on the lines of such standards are considered to have a well finite service life as per the number of pressure cycles followed while normal operations.