Hydraulic and pneumatic cylinders are designed to deliver years of dependable performance—but when a failure happens, it can halt production, reduce efficiency, and create costly downtime. Understanding the most common cylinder issues and how to troubleshoot them is essential for keeping your equipment running smoothly.

In the fast-paced and high-risk oil and gas industry, having reliable, durable equipment is critical to operational success. At the center of many vital systems lies a key component: the Hydraulic Cylinder. Whether it’s land-based drilling, offshore platforms, or refinery systems, hydraulic cylinders provide the power and control needed to operate safely and efficiently.

Cushions much like the ones on your couch right now are designed to take the impact force that comes from the piston moving quickly and abruptly stop when coming in contact with the Head or Cap. While this can happen occasionally without major damage to the cylinder, over time this impact loading can cause the tie rods to fail due to fatigue loading, or can cause excess compression loading to the piston, head or cap. This causes distortion of these parts which will ultimately lead to cylinder failure.

Piston sealing is critical to proper cylinder function.  Piston seals keep fluid from bypassing the piston which would otherwise reduce the pressure differential across the piston and in turn reduce the available force for the cylinder to perform work.

One of the very basic elements in designing a cylinder to meet the needs of a machine is the determination of whether or not the cylinder should be a single or double rod cylinder.  Each type has its own distinct advantages and disadvantages, and is an important early step in the cylinder design.

A critical decision to make when designing a cylinder is the size of the bore. The bore is the inner diameter of the cylinder tube, which can also be known as the barrel. The bore size, along with the known operating pressure of the cylinder determines the force output of the cylinder. Many hydraulic systems are designed to run at 3000 psi hydraulic pressure, while most pneumatic systems are designed to run at roughly 100 psi.

Let's take it back to the Basics! Like... what is a Cylinder??? What do all these words mean?! How do I know what to order?? Let me help you with some specifics to cylinders and to our Sheffer line!