Oil & Gas

Oilfield cylinders live in the worst combination of conditions a hydraulic actuator can see: high working pressures, contaminated fluid, hydrogen sulfide, and a duty cycle that sits idle for hours and then demands full rated force on the next stroke. A cylinder sized to the catalog instead of the application is a cylinder that scores its bore on a mud-fouled rod, or blows a seal the first time it sees a shock spike from a stuck joint of pipe.

The rod is where oilfield service is won or lost. Chrome plating alone will not hold up to sour gas and salt; the plating spec, base-metal hardness, and seal package all have to be chosen for the fluid and the atmosphere, not just the pressure. Rod wipers and bearing lengths get sized for the side loads that pipe handlers and racking arms actually put on a cylinder — loads that rarely act straight down the centerline. Getting the bearing surface and gland right is what keeps a rod from galling when the whole assembly is loaded off-axis.

For blowout-preventer handling and other lift-critical duty, the cylinder is a safety component, and it gets treated like one: correct steel, correct welds, and a 100% pressure test before it leaves the floor. We build these to the print and to the working pressure the equipment actually runs, with FKM seals where the fluid is aggressive and heavier gland bearings where the geometry says the load comes in off-center. If the original is obsolete, we reverse-engineer from the failed part and the mounting envelope.

Representative applications

• Blowout preventer (BOP) handling and lift systems
• Pipe handlers, iron roughnecks, and racking board arms
• Workover and pulling-unit mast and jack cylinders
• Mud pump and pressure-control skid actuation
• Wellhead and Christmas-tree valve actuators