Hydraulic System Test for Gear and Vane Pumps
The most common approach for troubleshooting a hydraulic system is to check the pump. The pump is core to the operation of any hydraulic system and therefore, it can often bear the brunt for any system issues.
If you’re suspicious that the pump is at the root of your issue, then follow our steps to identify and determine what the problem is and how to solve it:
Before we get started, we would like you to recall that pumps are not capable of creating pressure, they can just move the hydraulic fluid to the system from the reservoir. We’re going to start by looking at the gear and vane type pumps.
The pump malfunctions that are most common are related to inadequate delivery of flow or the inadequate development of the required system pressure. When it comes to vane and gear pump, the failure mode can differ. Gear pumps have a tendency to lose their efficiency at pumping over time and will gradually fail. It is likely that the operator of the system has recognised that the performance is slowly deteriorating. On the opposite end of the scale, vane pumps are likely to just suddenly stop working, out of the blue.
When determining what the issues are, it’s time to go back to basics and use your human’s senses of touch, sight and hearing. Listen for bad bearings or whether there is air in the fluid. You should also touch to discover where there is too much heat and whether that is around the pump area. Watch to see which components are moving and which are not. There should be a pressure gauge at the outlet of the pump which will enable you to evaluate the situation. If there isn’t, then you could use a portable pressure meter.
If there is pressure registered at the pump outlet, then you may want to take steps to understand what is causing this and put in a remedy.
Pumps can cause tricky situations, but once you get familiar with the nuances of your particular pump, you’ll be able to spot for signs of issues and will know what to expect.