Water Hydraulic Basics

Transferring your oil hydraulics knowledge to water hydraulics is straightforward. The same basic rules of hydraulic design apply, for valves and for circuits. For instance:

Typical System Operating Temperature: 45 deg. C or 113 deg. F Max.
Inlet Line Velocity: < 1 m/sec or < 3 fps Max.
Pressure Line Velocity: 6 m/sec. or < 20 fps
Kv (or Cv) Values: Manufacturers calculate these figures using water anyway.

The main thing to remember is that most water hydraulics components are based on leak tight designs, (which generally means seated valves), because water finds leak paths very quickly. In the past this posed problems for valve design engineers, but today's component designs have eliminated almost all of these issues. Using seat type valves requires a slightly different approach to circuit design, but a competent hydraulics engineer has no problem with this. And if you have a question, just call us.