The role of filtration in the machinery manufacturing industry---Equipment applications

The role of filtration in the machinery manufacturing industry---Equipment applications

The machinery manufacturing component has a low level of use for filtration equipment in its main operations, but a relatively very large use in its ancillary, or utility, operations. Almost all machine tools use a cooling fluid and lubricant for the tool tip or pressing or bending zone, and these fluids have become quite complex, and therefore expensive, formulations. Single use of such fluids is economically unacceptable, and so the recycling of coolants has become essential to the safe and efficient working of the associated tooling. A filter or centrifuge, or at the very least a settling tank, is involved as an important part of the recycling system. As with other production processes, the demands on machine tools in terms of precision have risen to such an extent as to require the use of swarf filters that are likely to be automatically operated and to use a complex medium such as a spun-bond, or a composite (melt-blown on paper).

There are other major fluid uses in this sector in the provision of working machinery movement (such as robot arms or conveying belts), employing pneumatic, hydraulic and lubrication systems. The same requirement for precision in machining has also increased the demands on these fluid systems. Here again more complex media are needed for the filters that are an essential part of these systems. This is even more true of compressed air systems in general, with much higher levels of purity - from dust and oil - now being demanded.

There are quite a number of furnaces in use in this sector, mainly for heat treatment purposes, and increasingly their exhausts must be controlled to reduce solid particle emissions. Bag filters and similar equipment are becoming more common as a result.

There is also one application for separation equipment in this sector that can be regarded as a process use, and that is in electrochemical machining, where metal removal is done electrolytically. The solutions in which this is done must be maintained free from dirt, and filtration or simpler settlement equipment is used for this purpose.

These have all been applications within the factory operations, but there is a much larger ‘use’ of filters — those being installed in the engines and cabins of the on- and off-road vehicles and other types of transport equipment, produced by the sector's component industries.

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The normal modern automobile or commercial vehicle has filters for engine fuel and lubricants, for intake air, and for cooling water. Other systems in the vehicle that use filters include suspension, automatic braking, power steering, crankcase and safety airbags. The air conditioning unit, an increasingly common accessory, will include a filter, and, throughout the sector, filters are being fitted for cabin air, to remove pollen, dust, and the fumes generated by other vehicles, and so increase the comfort of driver and passengers. Exhaust filters are not yet a feature of the private car, but may become necessary, at least for diesel-engined vehicles. This combination of variety of filter type, with the numerical size of the vehicle component, provides a large market for suppliers of parts, especially filters and filter media.

It is estimated that there are approaching 800 million private and commercial vehicles currently on the roads of the world. This figure includes recreation vehicles, mobile homes, and commercial vehicles of all types, from the small van to the juggernaut of large-scale transport companies, and buses and coaches. These all need servicing with replacement filters, some, of course, being serviced more regularly than others, but this gives an idea of the scale of supply in this sector.

In addition to these road vehicles, this sector covers railway locomotives and metropolitan and tramway power units; ships of all kinds, from the small pleasure boat to the ocean-going oil tanker or cruise liner; and all aircraft (to include, eventually, space travel). The total number of railway engines, ships, and aircraft, currently in use, is not far short of the total number of private and commercial vehicles, but the replacement needs for some of these much larger engines may be quite different from those of the private car.

Although most separation needs in this sector are met by filters, some of the engines are very large, especially on ships, and other equipment types are involved, such as the use of centrifuges in marine engine fuel washing. For overall transport system operation there are quite different needs, such as the effluent treatment requirements of airports. 

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