TTI worked with our trusted reliability partner to help a leading steel manufacturing plant achieve 99.8% lower system contamination.
Steel manufacturing Plants are some of the harshest operating environments in the world, filled with abrasive dust, extreme temperatures, and constant mechanical stress. In these conditions, hydraulic and lubrication systems face a relentless barrage of contaminants that can quickly degrade fluid quality.
When cleanliness targets aren’t met, even small amounts of particulate or moisture can accelerate wear, reduce system efficiency, increase unplanned downtime, and massively increase maintenance costs across the entire facility. These challenges make proper system cleanliness not just a best practice but a mission-critical requirement for reliability, safety, and long-term asset protection.
In late 2024, maintenance professionals at the leading North American steel manufacturer found themselves confused and frustrated by recurring issues with their skin-pass mill hydraulic system. This system, critical to surface refining and finishing, was consistently failing to reach performance and reliability benchmarks. The steel manufacturer turned to one of TTI’s trusted reliability partners for help, and a fluid analysis report revealed the root cause of the issue: particulate contamination levels that greatly exceeded their target ISO cleanliness codes.
Working with our reliability partner, TTI analyzed the skin-pass mill system further and discovered that accelerated wear on critical components had long been treated as nothing more than routine maintenance. Just as importantly, the existing filtration system was not optimized to withstand the high-pressure and debris-ridden environments, resulting in premature servo valve failures and costly downtime. By normalizing this ongoing issue, deeper system issues had been overlooked, resulting in diminished system efficiency and much higher operating and maintenance costs.
Finally understanding the full extent of the plant’s system cleanliness issues, we worked quickly with our reliability partner to identify and deliver the right solutions. TTI’s world-class PowerGuard™ filter elements, specifically designed to meet the demands of high-flow, high-contamination systems, were shipped out in less than 10 days.
The performance impact of these PowerGuard™ filter element upgrades was both massive and immediate. System cleanliness levels quickly stabilized, as did fluid integrity throughout the hydraulic circuit. Fluid analysis reports revealed a 99.8% reduction of contaminants (per mL of fluid)—improving an initial ISO code of 22/19/16 all the way down to ISO 13/12/9
The plant’s servo valve representative took notice of the significant increase in component lifespan and overall system reliability. Curious about the change, he reached out to the steel manufacturing plant to ask whether they had switched servo valve vendors, noting that he was no longer seeing their typical volume of replacement orders.
He was met with an unexpected response: There was no new vendor. Switching to TTI Filtration Solutions had simply reduced their servo valve consumption to 25% of their previous rate.