Water hydraulics uses tap water or demineralised water as a pressure medium and has fewer environmental impacts than oil-using hydraulics. The applicability is restricted by the microbial quality of the medium. The objectives of this study were to determine whether microbes grow in the pressure medium of a water hydraulic system, biofilm is formed on the surfaces and to describe the diversity of bacteria that survive and grow in water hydraulic systems. A pilot-scale water hydraulic system was used in the experiments. The viable counts in the pressure medium increased in three days from 102 to 3 ×104 cfu/ml followed by a gradual decrease towards the steady-state concentration of 6× 1034 cfu/ml. The total cell numbers decreased from 3×105 to 2 ×104 cells/ml during the three weeks of operation indicating attachment onto the system surfaces as biofilms. The biofilm cell densities on collector slide surfaces varied between 7 ×103 and 1.2 ×104 cells/cm2 after 21 days of operation. The phosphatase activity in the pressure medium was in conformity with the numbers of viable bacteria. The enzymatic activities (α- and β- glucosidase, phosphatase, aminopeptidase) varied between 0.4 and 300 nmol/lh. The diversity of bacteria growing in the system was wide and differed from that of tap water.
Fault detection of piston conditions in water hydraulic motor by vibration signal with wavelet analysis
