20. February 2012

New Nitrogen Charging Systems: The most efficient way of filling hydraulic accumulators

Category News

Hydraulic Accumulators are the preferred choice when fluids need to be stored under pressure or pulsations in hydraulic systems need to be minimised. As liquids are virtually incompressible, hydraulic accumulators use the compressibility of a gas (usually nitrogen) to store liquids.

There are countless applications for hydraulic accumulators in the industrial market (machine tools), energy (wind turbines) or oil and gas sector (Wellhead Control). For all applications the hydraulic accumulators are pressure vessels and, therefore, must be serviced regularly. This also means that hydraulic accumulators have to be refilled after every service with nitrogen.

The filling of the accumulators from nitrogen bottles has always been the most practical alternative and although this method has its drawbacks the need for higher pressures and full use of the supply bottle gas gives an opportunity for the use of Gas Boosters.

The nitrogen charging stations that Maximator offers are a remarkable solution. The Maximator Gas Boosters will take gas pressure from the nitrogen bottles and compress it up to 750 bar and in this way more than 90% of the bottle contents are used.

The design and easy handling of the Maximator Nitrogen charging stations with the use of special brackets can be mounted directly on the gas supply bottle. In this way even the filling of difficult to access accumulators, such as those used in wind turbines, becomes easy and simple.

As an alternative to the use of compressed air the Maximator Nitrogen charging stations can be driven directly from the nitrogen bottle supply. This means that you do not need any additional driving energy and the charging station becomes highly mobile.

Even the gas consumption for the operation of the compressor is optimized in two ways. By means of a bypass line, the available cylinder pressure is used. So the Maximator Gas Booster only operates when the accumulator is filled up to the pressure level of the Nitrogen supply bottle. When the Gas Booster is operated the drive gas is required only for the pressure stroke, the suction stroke is performed by the gas pressure from the nitrogen cylinder thus reducing nitrogen consumption during the charging process.

Are you interested in our nitrogen charging stations? We are glad to discuss your application and to prepare an individual offer for you. Please feel free to contact us.