5 common failures of hydraulic cylinder seals

By Sponsored Content | April 13, 2020

By Mary Gannon

Contributed by James Czegledi, Engineering manager, Peninsular Cylinders

It can happen at anytime, most often without notice — your cylinder has failed. More often than not the failure can be attributed to a seal or seals used inside of the cylinder. Let’s take a look at the types of seals typically found inside a hydraulic cylinder.

The most common reasons for seal failure and some possible causes include the following:

The end user is most concerned with the cylinder being able to handle the required payload at a certain speed. They are also focused on repeatability, whereas an engineer would requires the pertinent information disclosed to ensure the design is the best it can be.

For instance, while there is an ideal working pressure, there can be spikes throughout the system that occur when a direction change happens. Additional or different seal designs can be implemented to control and handle the variations in pressure.

This application data is critical when determining the seal types. Most manufacturers have this data readily available. An electronic application data sheet from Peninsular is used to determine a recommended cylinder design. The data sheet collects such information as working pressure, fluid pressure, temperature range, fluid type and more.

General maintenance should also be conducted. For example, having a seal kit replacement on hand can extend the overall life of the cylinder. In some circumstances it may also make sense to have a backup or spare cylinder available to avoid costly downtime.Using the aforementioned application data and close relationships with design engineers can ensure the right cylinder and seal package for all demanding applications.

Sponsored content by Peninsular Cylinder Co.