Sealing products and legal requirements - Parker Hannifin ...

Parker-Prädifa ranks among
Baden-Wuerttemberg’s innovation leaders
The Parker Seal Group was
recently nominated for the Baden-
Wuerttemberg Environmental Award
for its HL piston seal that is used in
hydraulic systems. This seal reduces
energy consumption between 30 and
70 % compared with conventional
solutions. The company was shortlisted
for the prestigious award and
just barely missed one of the top
three places.
The product selected
by the high-calibre
judging panel is the
HL – HydroLube
– piston seal for
use in hydraulic
systems. It
is made from
a proprietary
thermoplastic
elastomer material
and has a
system pressure
controlled redundant
sealing lip system.
The patent-pending
seal with its new type
of adaptive seal lip geometry
features an equally novel action
principle that ensures optimum
friction, sliding and sealing conditions
in hydraulic systems, which
result in significantly higher energy
efficiency. Compared with conventional
industry standards the new
seal requires between 30 and 70 %
less energy, depending on load.
In the case of traditional solutions
friction converts this energy into heat,
which then either dissipates without
producing any useful effect or has to
be absorbed through cooling, which
is another energy-consuming process.
The new solution, in which the novel
type of sealing geometry is mated
with a newly developed polyurethane
sealing material for optimal friction
conditions, provides an additional
advantage. As the new seal offers
significant miniaturisation potential,
the manufacturers of the systems in
which the seal is used can make their
– typically metallic – grooves much
smaller which considerably reduces
material consumption. Apart from
saving valuable and increasingly
costly raw materials on the manufacturing
side, this also benefits operators
– for instance of heavy earth
moving equipment – as miniaturisation
leads to a further
reduction of
energy consumption
due to
the resulting
lower
use
of kineticenergy.
Thomas
Papatheodorou,
Manager Technical
Services, receives the
nomination certificate from
Minister of the Environment Franz Untersteller
on behalf of the Packing Division Europe.
The range of applications in hydraulics
is wide and varied. In addition to
the afore-mentioned earth moving
equipment, lifting platforms, forklifts
and lift trucks, test and automation
cylinders, cylinders in agricultural
technology as well as door lock cylinders
or gas springs are typical uses. In
all of these devices and systems the
aspect of friction optimisation is a key
to higher energy efficiency. Due to
their wide-spread use the energetic
advantages of the new Parker seal
are not only beneficial to equipment
operators but have an overall positive
environmental effect as well.
“Our new sealing product now makes
it possible for system manufacturers
and end users to benefit from an extremely
reduced friction force level,
combined with outstanding wear
properties of the polyurethane
family of materials,” says Thomas
Braun, Marketing & Engineering
Manager of the Parker Packing
Division Europe. “As a result, in
addition to continuous, load-dependent
energy savings, the seal achieves
above-average operating reliability
and service life. All of these factors
certainly contribute to energy efficiency
and convinced the judging
panel of the 2011 Baden-Wuerttemberg
Energy Award. We are proud of having
been shortlisted for this prestigious
award. This nomination is giving
a further boost to our motivation to
continue to drive our development
work aimed at achieving increasingly
energy-efficient solutions in the vast
field of sealing technology for the
benefit of our customers and the
environment.”
This year, the competition for the
Environmental Award of the State
of Baden-Wuerttemberg – incepted
in 2009 – was held for the second
time in the categories of Material
Efficiency, Emission Reductions,
Preparation and Separation, Measuring
and Control Technology. Franz
Untersteller, Minister for Environment,
Climate and Energy Management,
is convinced that the importance of
environmental engineering will continue
to increase, as confirmed by
the large number of qualified entries
submitted for the competition: “Environmental
engineering is becoming
a driving force for the economy. Energy-
and material-efficient processes
and products make it possible for
businesses to realise enormous cost
reduction potential, enhance their
competitiveness and, last but not
least, develop new, fast-growing markets
worldwide. Our Environmental
Award aims to make a mark in this
respect by putting the spotlight on
companies whose innovations
are particularly geared to saving resources
and protecting the environment.”
SealingReport · November 2011 7