Mechanical Technology — May 2013
13
⎪
Proactive maintenance, lubrication and contamination management
⎪
Off the back of its technical expertise and extensive
filtration experience, Hytec Fluid Filtration is aggres-
sively expanding its market share in filtration kits for
the mobile aftermarket.
HY-PRO vacuum dehydration units for oil decontami-
nation optimise the balance between heat, vacuum
and process design to rapidly remove free, emulsified
and dissolved water and gas.
only company offering this service, our
technical services, competitive pricing
and the way we do business is helping
us to expand rapidly,” he suggests.
In support of the expansion, Hytec
Fluid Filtration has recently added the
Baldwin filter brand to its mobile bas-
ket. “Baldwin is the leading aftermarket
filter brand by far in the heavy goods
vehicle (HGV) equipment sector in the
USA, and among the top five filter ele-
ment brands in the world. It is a major
player in the global engine mobile
market!” Bottyan exclaims.
“In addition, Baldwin has recently
released a new filter media, ProTura
®
Nanofiber, that is outperforming the
best competing brands,” he adds.
“There are very few media manufac-
turers in the world and most filter
manufacturers don’t themselves use a
proprietary media. With this develop-
ment, Baldwin’s ProTura
®
Nanofiber-
based Extreme Performance (XP) filters,
will offer contaminant holding capacity
that outperforms traditional cellulose
fibre. The ProTura
®
Nanofiber media
has a lattice-like structure composed
of sub-micron diameter (90 nm) fibres
bonded to cellulose media. This struc-
ture causes fine contaminant particles
– at the micron level – to load onto the
media surface rather than penetrating
deeper into the media.
The captured surface particles form
a ‘cake’ of contaminant on the surface
and, due to normal vibration, this cake
falls from the media and is channelled
to the bottom of the housing on the
dirty side of the filter. This makes way
for more particles to collect on the
surface and the repeat of the cycle.
Surface contaminant is removed by a
housing dust ejector, leaving the filter
with the ability to capture far greater
amounts of contaminant than filters
with conventional media across a nor-
mal service interval. Also, the thinner
fibres prevent inner media clogging and
the on-going removal of surface con-
taminants results in significantly lower
flow restrictions through the filter and,
therefore, lower energy losses. This of-
fers particularly improved performance
over traditional filters nearing the end
of their service life.
In summary, the use of these filters
provides higher initial efficiency, greater
contaminant holding capacity, longer
service life, lower flow restriction, longer
engine life, and lower total operating
costs for the protected machine. “When
an OEM builds an engine, it specifies the
filter requirements and several suppliers
can make filters to accurately comply
with these. Baldwin’s philosophy is to
meet or exceed the OEM filter’s perfor-
mance,” says Bottyan. “Baldwin’s Ex-
treme Performance filters with ProTura
Nanofiber offer high filtration efficiency
for demanding applications and environ-
ments, ultimately leading to lower total
costs of ownership,” he advises.
As an aftermarket filter provider,
one concern that Baldwin distributors
sometimes have relates to warranties,
and whether the use of an aftermarket
filter will void the manufacturers war-
ranty. “That is most assuredly not the
case, and the company has written
testimonials from several leading OEMs
to this effect. The technology, expertise
and quality standards of Baldwin filters
has led to them being a substantial
branded supplier to new-build OEMs,”
Bottyan informs
MechTech
.
When asked about the typical
costs of adopting Hytec Fluid
Technology’s service kit offering,
Bottyan points to one customer
whose filter kit costs were signifi-
cantly reduced. “And some of these
machines were still being serviced
under the OEM’s warranty, so the ac-
tual percentage saving was possibly
as high as 25%,” he adds. “While we
offer premium quality filters, we do not
charge premium prices,” he assures.
“As a filtration specialist, we are
able to offer 100% of a customer’s
filtration needs, therefore we also in-
clude other premium brand filters
in the kits. For hydraulic systems,
for example, we offer the HY-PRO
brand, which is technically better
in that they are designed and tested
according to Dynamic Filter Efficiency
(DFE) principles. DFE ensures that
both a filter’s capture and retention
performances are quantified for cyclic
and changing operating conditions,”
Bottyan explains. DFE bridges the gap
between laboratory data and the real
world by inducing dynamic duty cycles
and real-time performance measuring to
predict the worst case fluid cleanliness
of a filter. “Hydraulic filters designed
and tested based on static conditions
cannot claim a cleanliness rating as
accurate, or a filter as efficient as the
HY-PRO brand,” he claims.
“We are a one-stop filtration partner.
Rather than simply supplying techni-
cally sound replacement elements, we
have access to all of the best brands to
fully support every conceivable need,
and we have the technical expertise to
custom design a solution should off-
the-shelf units not prove satisfactory.
We aim to become the total filtration
solutions partner for an ever increasing
number of vehicle fleet operators,” Bot-
tyan concludes.
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