Failure analysis of irreversible changes in the construction of the damaged rubber hoses

• Verification of application possibility of the industrial metrotomography specified for analysis of the high-pressure hoses
• Analysis of the damaging process occurring in the high-pressure rubber hoses
• Description of the damaging processes in the high-pressure rubber hoses
• Cross-section of the hose after separation of the external covering

The high-pressure hydraulic hoses are components used in operation of various kinds of machines and machinery. Operational reliability and safety of the pressure hoses belong among the most important requirements influencing functionality of the hydraulic circuits, which are installed in a wide range of technical equipment. Users of the machines equipped with the hydraulic hoses are aiming to avoid emergency situations caused by possible failures of the pressure hoses. Therefore it is necessary to know and to describe damaging processes arising in the hoses. The up to now used testing methods are insufficient at present because they are not able to offer necessary information about the damaging processes as well as about the degradation changes occurring in the hoses during their current operation. Therefore in order to describe the degradation processes in more detail, new, progressive diagnostic methods are developed nowadays. One of the most frequently applied modern diagnostic methods is the computer industrial tomography. This method can be utilised for analysing of the high-pressure hoses, however it is necessary to verify whether this method is suitable for application in this area with regard to the individual structural components of the rubber hoses. This paper presents fracture analysis of surface for a rubber steel-reinforced hose using the industrial computed tomography Zeiss Metrotom 1500.