Hydraulic hoses are a vital component within heavy-duty equipment such as excavators and forestry harvesters. As these machines often work in harsh environments, there is the potential for hoses to get damaged.
Greg Reardon, business development manager at Parker Hannifin Corp., said Parker analyzes its hoses if they are returned to understand why they failed in the field. During these analyses, the company noticed hoses reached a failure mode when hose covers were removed due to falling debris or other external damage occurring.
“What happens when that cover gets removed is that it exposes the reinforcement to the hose and it weakens the hose,” he explained. “Once that reinforcement is exposed, that also leads to corrosion, which could potentially lead to a premature failure.”
To help address this issue, Parker developed its Critical Protection hose cover featuring a patent-pending design which protects hoses from external damage.
Power & Motion spoke with Reardon about the design of the Critical Protection hose cover and how it can benefit machinery used in rugged environments.
The Critical Protection hose cover will be among the products Parker exhibits at IFPE 2023. Visit our IFPE channel for more on this and other content related to the year's largest event for fluid power, motion control and power transmission technologies.
