A new case study is available now!

A new case study is available now!

With the help of Hy-Pro Filtration, a U.S. Paper Mill was able to achieve 75% cleaner oil. 

A New Episode of Factory Side Chat is now available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, and YouTube.

Episode 12, Saving Time, Money, and the Planet: The Evolution and Benefits of Reducing Oxidation By-Products and Varnish

In this episode, we discuss the evolution of the industry's approach to varnish and review strategies to reduce oxidation and varnish production and extend oil life, saving time and money and increasing sustainability.

Hy-Pro’s Scott Howard leads this discussion with two of the most experienced and influential thought leaders in the industry: Peter Dufresne, CEO of EPT Clean Oil, and Aaron Hoeg, General Manager for Hy-Pro Filtration.

Key Takeaways:

• The industry’s approach to varnish control has changed, and new technologies are making it easier to solve varnish issues and prevent formation.
• Varnish is a complex problem, but there are a number of strategies that can be used to prevent it from forming.
• By following these strategies, you can extend the life of your oil and save time, money, and resources.

Why You Should Listen:

• This episode contains valuable information on how to prevent varnish formation in industrial oils.
• The guests are two of the most knowledgeable experts in the industry.
  
  

A new update is available for the Hy-Pro App!

Open this Blog to download below. 

Hy-Pro's Factoryside Chat is now available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, and YouTube.

Contamination is Complicated; Removing it is Easy

Check out our latest product explainer video on Hy-Pro's VUD

The optimized balance between heat, vacuum, process design, and an easy, user-friendly operating system for removal of water and particulate from hydraulic and high viscosity lubricating oils. Equipped with generously sized, high-efficiency filtration, the VUD is the ultimate oil purifier. Keeping fluids clean and dry extends component and bearing life, increases productivity, minimizes downtime, and extends useful fluid life. The VUD is ideal for removing all forms of water, including free, emulsified, and dissolved water and gas from hydraulic and lubricating oils.

Hy-Pro's Factoryside Chat is now available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, and YouTube.

The 2025 Donaldson Hy-Pro Product Catalog for Filter Elements and Filtration Equipment is Now Online!

The newest and updated Hy-Pro Filtration Product Catalog is now available online and easier to use than ever before with interactive elements that are not possible in a printed catalog - always available, simple to browse, and information is easy to share.

Click here to view the 2025 Donaldson Hy-Pro Product Catalog

Hy-Pro's Factoryside Chat is now available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, and YouTube.

Hy-Pro's Factoryside Chat is now available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Podbean.

Despite thousands of dollars and hours spent trying to mitigate the effects of varnish in turbine oil, many still suffer from this ongoing yet solvable issue. When combustion and steam turbines fall victim to unit trip or fail-to-start conditions, varnish is the usual suspect.

Managing the integrity of the fluids used in critical assets to reduce downtime

The risks related to Precious Metals mining can be quite daunting. Commodity price volatilities, Mineral Resources and Reserves estimates, Remote locations, Austere environments, Accidents, Labor, Environmental impacts are just a few of the many inherent risks mining companies must manage successfully.

Intimately tied into these risks are the formidable investment in the assets needed to mine Precious Metals! These assets are exposed to the harsh elements and contaminants found in the mining environment in which they must operate.

When New Oil Turns Dark

Maintenance professionals who have implemented Oil Analysis Programs (OAP) into their Preventative Maintenance Program understand, at some point, it's going to happen, we don't know when, or where, but one day our new oil is going to start to turn...dark.

Four Ways Outside Contaminants Enter your System

As an equipment owner or manager, the last thing we want to find in our system is contamination.  After all, contamination means loss of efficiency or even downtime, which ultimately costs time and money.  Contamination somehow always sneaks its way into our systems.  So, how does contamination get in our systems and what are we supposed to do about it?

The Dollars and Sense of Fluid Cleanliness

The old phrase will always stand true, "A penny saved is a penny earned." When it comes to businesses and their pennies, every penny counts. When problems during the production and manufacturing process are fixed, people will say "pennies well spent." So, if pennies are so important, then what about dollars? What about thousands, or hundreds of thousands of dollars? What about millions of dollars? In today's production and manufacturing economy, these kinds of numbers are game-changing.

Hy-Pro's Compact Offline Filter

Our newest and smallest unit yet, the Compact Offline Filter is able to fit where no other filtration equipment can. Ideal for smaller systems or where a larger offline system wouldn't fit, this solution can be permanently installed or made portable for ease of use. 

Demulsibility

What is Demulsibility?

Demulsibility is the ability of oil to separate from water. Oil and water naturally separate because like molecules attract each other. Oil sticks with oil, water sticks with water. Oil is "hydrophobic", or "afraid of water," which is a benefit when it comes to fluids like turbine oil. 

Dynamic Filter Efficiency

What is Dynamic Filter Efficiency?

Dynamic Filter Efficiency matches filter testing with real-life conditions. 

All hydraulic and lube systems have a critical contamination tolerance level that is often defined by, but not limited to, the most sensitive system component such as servo valves or high speed journal bearings. Defining the ISO fluid cleanliness code upper limit is a function of component sensitivity, safety, system criticality and ultimately getting the most our of hydraulic and lube assets. 

Extending Fluid Life Saves Money and Helps the Environment

Our mission is to make our customers as efficient as possible, and we achieve that with the highest quality filtration products and total system cleanliness strategies to maximize uptime, productivity and prevent costly fluid contamination related failures. Been there. Done that. Going to do it again tomorrow. But that's not the only way we make our customers efficient. Extending the useful life of in-service fluids pays big dividends in reliability, saves money on premature fluid replacement costs, and reduces the environmental impact of industry by reducing the amount of fluids used and discarded. Enhancing reliability, saving money, and protecting the environment are not only good business, they're our responsibility. To help reduce oil usage, let's first understand why fluids are condemned and prematurely replaced. 

Extending Bearing and Component Life and Saving Money 

Improving fluid cleanliness means reduced downtime, more reliable equipment, longer fluid life, and fewer maintenance hours. In addition, it also means reduced component replacement and repair expenses. 

ISO Cleanliness Codes Explained

The ISO Cleanliness Code (per ISO4406-1999) is used to quantify particulate contamination levels per milliliter of fluid at 3 sizes - 4µ, 6µ, and 14µ. It is expressed in 3 numbers (example 19/17/14) where each number represents a contaminant level code for the correlating particle size. The code includes all particles of the specified size and larger.It is important to note that each time a code increases, the quantity range of particles is doubling. Inversely, as a code decreases by one the contaminant level is cut in half. 

In this Video we provide a brief description and demonstration of Hy-Pro's signature coalescing technology found in our FCLCOD and COT model lines.

Steam turbines are essential to the production of electricity. In fact, over 80% of global electricity is produced by steam turbines. 

Watch this 5-minute video to learn about Demulsibility and how essential its characteristics are to turbine oil.

At Hy-Pro, our mission is to make our customers as efficient as possible, and we achieve that with the highest quality filtration products and plans. Our Total System Cleanliness strategies maximize uptime, productivity and prevent costly fluid contamination-related failures. We often achieve that by simply upgrading our customers to Hy-Pro DFE rated filters and Hy-Dry Breathers. But, oftentimes, too many systems have insufficient filtration, or worse off, no filtration at all; this creates the need for a whole range of offline particulate filtration solutions.

Oil can be high maintenance. It’s not something you just dump in your system and forget about. You have to monitor it, manage it and oversee it. Just letting oil cycle through your system without routinely testing it is a sure ticket to equipment damage.

Controlling the contaminant flow of your hydraulic, lubricant or fuel reservoirs is one of the simplest goals in achieving Total Systems Cleanliness.

In the fascinating and fundamental field that is industrial fluid filtration, there exist many types of filter elements and many different types of media. In this article, we will briefly cover filter elements and the most common types of media they're made up of. The medias featured below include: cellulose, glass, wire mesh and water removal, coalesce and resin.

Throughout the first three entries in this series (find parts one, two and three), we've discussed the difference in two filter element testing methods, ISO16889 and DFE. We've also illustrated how many elements fall short of their stated beta ratio under dynamic flow conditions. Today we'll wrap it up with simulated cold-start tests.

DFE Multi-Pass: Cold Start Contamination Retention

Once the element has captured enough contaminant to reach approximately 90% of the terminal ΔP (dirty filter indicator setting), the main flow goes to zero and the injection system is turned off for a short dwell period. Then the main flow goes to maximum element rated flow accompanied by real-time particle count to measure retention efficiency of the contaminant loaded element. The dynamic duty cycle is repeated to further monitor the retention efficiency of the filter element after a restart.

Last week we covered the differences between the ISO16889 Filter Test Procedure and the DFE Filter Test Procedure. This week we illustrate the difference between elements engineered to retain particles during dynamic flow conditions and those that are engineered only to pass the ISO16889 test. (Looking for previous posts? Find parts one, two and four.)

Last week, in part one, we briefly discussed how filter elements are rated by manufacturers. This week we're discussing the industry standard ISO16889 multi-pass test and Hy-Pro's standard, the DFE test. (Already read part two? Read parts three and four.)

Current Filter Performance Testing Methods

To understand the need for DFE, it is important to understand how filters are currently tested and validated. Manufacturers use the industry standard ISO16889 multi-pass test to rate filter efficiency and dirt-holding capacity of filter elements under ideal lab conditions.

Figure 1 depicts the test circuit where hydraulic fluid is circulated at a constant flow rate in a closed-loop system with on-line particle counters before and after the test filter. Contaminated fluid is added to the system at a constant rate. Small amounts of fluid are removed before and after the filter for particle counting to calculate the filter efficiency (capture). The capture efficiency is expressed as the Filtration Ratio (Beta) which is the relationship between the number of particles greater than and equal to a specified size (Xμ_[c]) counted before and after the filter. In real-world terms, this test is the equivalent of testing a filter in an off-line kidney loop rather than replicating an actual hydraulic or lube system. It’s basically a filter cart test.

The Dynamic Filtration Efficiency (DFE) Test is Hy-Pro's standard for testing filter elements. Throughout this four-part series  (find parts two, three and four) we'll discuss what it is, why it matters and why elements engineered with this test in mind outperform others in real-life applications.

First, let's start with the basics.

Why are filters used? How are they rated?

All hydraulic and lube systems have a critical contamination tolerance level that is often defined by -- but not limited to -- the most sensitive system component such as servo valves or high-speed journal bearings. Defining the ISO fluid cleanliness code upper limit is a function of component sensitivity, safety, system criticality and ultimately getting the most out of hydraulic and lube assets.

The Problem: Hydraulic Pump Failure 

Pumps are the heart of hydraulic systems. When the pump fails, the entire system is down until the pump is operational again. This poses a serious threat to any operation relying on hydraulic systems for productivity.

Recently, a hydraulic valve manufacturer was losing 25 pumps a year on their centralized hydraulic system at a cost of $2,440 each -- and that’s only the pump cost. When you account for maintenance resources, lost oil and lost production, each failure costs ~$25,320.

The Application

A hydraulic valve manufacturer required pristine fluid (< 14/12/9) to test flow across an 80-micron orifice on their test stand. Gross amounts of contamination in the fluid would skew the test results, invalidating any data collected.

The system held 100 l (26.4 gal ) of ISO VG 32 fluid with a flow rate of 25 lpm (6.6 gpm ).Through observing the manufacturer’s sampling practices, discussing fluid handling best practices and interpreting their lab reports, three independent problems were identified:

Do you have trouble translating your fluid analysis reports into useful information you can act upon? If you were to notice high levels of Ba on your report would you know what it is and where its likely coming from?

If you could use a hand we’ve got the perfect tool in our new Fluid Analysis Reference Guide. Within the chart below are contaminants found on fluid analysis test reports listed according to their chemical symbol (often how they'll be listed on the reports) and the various sources from which they are known to occur. 

Hopefully, this chart will be a handy reference for reading and analyzing your fluid analysis reports. 

Phosphate ester hydraulic fluid has a tendency to become very acidic. As we’ve discussed previously, this acid can cause damage to seals throughout the system and lead to electrokinetic wear (and failure) in valves.

When gearboxes go down, it’s generally because of contamination. This is a costly repair on its own, but once you include the loss of production from downtime, the cost can soar to astronomical figures. Sadly, though, sometimes gearbox failure happens, which wastes your time and money. Let’s take a look at some of the main causes of gearbox contamination and how you can prevent it. 

The Problem of Varnish Contamination