One of the most sought after products available for transporting fuel in manufacturing facilities is hydraulic hoses. As fuel is highly combustible, it can lead to severe consequences if it leaks from the transportation system. Therefore, it is important that you take all practicable, preventive actions to ensure that fuel leaks do not cause injury to your personnel or damage expensive equipment in case the leaks provoke a fire. Here are some useful tips to get you started.
Proper system design
The first and most important step when it comes to preventing a hydraulic fluid leak is to ensure that the entire connection system is properly designed. Most of today's hydraulic hoses generally comprise at least three components: a central inner tube that transports the fluid, a second reinforcement layer and an outer protective layer. This robust construction is meant to make the hoses leak-free, but it does not necessarily mean that you shouldn't give any thought to the overall design of the system.
Hydraulic hose transportation systems with a small number of thread and joint connections are by design superior because they have a minimal number of potential leak spots. To achieve the best possible component performance, system designers must know the products that are made to work well for your specific application. To choose the right hose, the designers will have to take into account a number of different things including the temperature and pressure of the transported fluid as well as the support-systems available. When properly selected, some hoses are meant to ensure zero leakage.
Proper connection assembly
Any hydraulic hose is only as safe and efficient as the quality of workmanship employed in assembling it. Once you have come up with a design that minimises on the number of connections in the system, and you have found the correct hoses, you will need to make sure all connections are properly tightened. An effective way to prevent your connection assembly from becoming loose is to ensure all hoses, tubes and pipes in the system are correctly reinforced to provide protection against heavy vibrations that could cause joint or connection failure. Clamping is a good way to achieve this.
The best way to keep your fuel-carrying hydraulic hoses in good shape is to ask a professional to regularly come over to your premises and inspect the components for abrasions, corrosion and any other issues that could result in fluid leaks.
