The Effects of Summer Heat on a Hydraulic Fluid As the summer heat rises in large facilities, businesses using fluid power systems must take steps to ensure their fluid power equipment is equipped to handle the high temperatures.
While cold weather is responsible for some liquid power system failures, hot weather has its own drawbacks.
By understanding how heat affects your fluid power system and preparing your fluid power systems for the summer season, you reduce risks to your hydraulic equipment that can lead to costly downtime and increased maintenance demands. In this article, you will find preparation information and tips to help you understand and mitigate the effects of heat on Rexroth valve hydraulic fluid. It is important to understand viscosity. Be sure to read and understand the viscosity chart for your oil to understand how oil viscosity changes at different operating temperatures.
The viscosity of petroleum-based hydraulic oil decreases with increasing temperature. This reduces its ability to reduce heat and partial wear friction.
The low viscosity of the oil causes a loss of the strength of the lubricating film. If the load on the hydraulic system remains the same, but higher operating temperatures reduce the oil viscosity below what your equipment needs, the chances of friction, wear and adhesive wear increase. Stay cool by controlling the temperature. One way to help your hydraulic fluid system adapt to hot weather is to monitor the operating oil temperature. This means you need to have enough cooling cycles before the warmer weather arrives, rather than waiting for the warm season to start.