Alaa Industrial Equipment Factory (AFI) is the leading specialist in hydraulic systems and services in the region.

AFI has vast experience in providing hydraulic services to petrochemical and other industries.
AFI designs, engineer and manufactures hydraulic systems such as powerpacks, hydraulic cylinders and a wide range of hydraulic systems.
In addition to its manufacturing capability, AFI also offers a host of hydraulic services such as repair, overhaul and maintenance of hydraulic equipments.
One of the most important elements of hydraulic system is the Hydraulic Oil and the cleanliness of the hydraulic oil determines the effectiveness of the hydraulic system.
AFI has realised the significance of hydraulic oil cleanliness and provides a host of services such as Flushing, Filteration and Purification of hydraulic oils to ensure system integration and superior system performance.
AFI has carried our numerous service jobs on piping, flushing, filtration and purification of hydraulic oils activities in petrochemical and steel industries. AFI has a pool of highly trained technicians and most sophisticated equipments to carry out these jobs.
Its collaboration with Internormen-Germany, the world leader in filtration technology enables it provides the local industry with world class products with local service back up.
One of AFI's major flushing and filtration activities are carried out in Jubail. Companies such as Hadeed and Sabic use AFI as its service provider for various piping, flushing and filtration services for their hydraulic system.
AFI Jubail, headed by Shaikh Majid, has a team of technicians who have the expertise, experience and state of the art equipment to carry our any hydraulic related service activities for the customers in Jubail.
Hydraulic Flushing Services
With new hydraulic piping installation, oil flushing is mandatory. This gives the assurance that hydraulic pipes and tubes are free of harmful contaminants that can damage the entire hydraulic system.
If the entire system is not completely clean during change out, a volume of contaminated fluid that remain will immediately begin the cycle of degradation.
Prior to typical start up, the reservoir is drained and cleaned to remove accumulated silt, sludge, varnish and gels.
The insides walls, pipes and bottom of the reservoir are rinsed manually to remove dust, lint, and other reservoir dirt. Reclaimed fluid is then returned to the reservoir.
Hydraulic oil flushing includes circulating the fluid in the system using flushing unit with corresponding calculated flow requirements; circulating the oil in the reservoir through off-line battery filters for an extended period and the simultaneously monitoring particle contaminants until the target cleanliness level is achieved.
Hydraulic Oil Filtration Services
The objective of fluid filtration is to eliminate contaminants such as particles and water from the fluid.
This is usually accomplished using a filter cart or by diverting system flow through an external fluid-conditioning skid.
The objective of filtering the system is to avoid downtime caused by failure of system components due to excessive loading of contaminated suspended solids, increase life of hydraulic and the lubricating oil systems of the fluid, attain the necessary cleanliness grade and increase the economies of operation and therefore decrease maintenance charges. Reasons for performing a system filtration;
• Growing performance density of systems
• Avoidance of down time caused by failure of system components due to an excessive loading of contaminated solid particle
• Increase service life of the hydraulic and the lubricating oil systems and of the fluid
• Attainment of the necessary cleanliness grade
• Essential increase of the economies of operation and therefore decrease of maintenance charges
Common methods for filtration systems include:
• Off-Line Filtration standard
• Off-Line Filtration with cooler
• Mobile Off Line Filtration with water absorption
• Fluid Purifier Systems.
The technique or combination of techniques employed will depend on the type of system and its size, reliability objectives for the equipment and the reason for the filtering.
Fluid Purifier Systems
Water ranked one of the most frequently occurring kinds of contamination and as destructive foreign matter in second place behind particle contamination. Some of the problems and damages, water contamination can cause are as follows:
• Fluid destruction
• Exhaustion of additives
• Reduction of the lubrication characteristics
• Oil oxidation
• Internal corrosion
• Increased conductivity
Using vacuum dehydration principle, a vacuum draws the fluid out of the reservoir into the system and then purified using vacuum evaporation with inert gas.
Using dry air as inert gas, this enables dehydration process causing flash distillation and evaporative mass transfer.
Flash distillation create temperature and pressure condition sufficient to cause free & dissolved water to literally boil or vaporize out of fluid, while evaporative mass transfer utilises a lower vacuum and/or less heating of the oil to increase the rate of evaporation of free & dissolved water out of the fluid. This will create a large surface area for fluid/air contact which increases rate of mass transfer.
Benefits of system flushing, filtration and purification:
• Extra protection for your major investment in critical equipment
• Start systems at the cleanest possible condition
• Avoid unscheduled downtime
• Prevent cutting short components life
• Extend the oil service life and prevent premature oil aging
• Increased reliability and productivity of the plants
• Reduce expensive fluid replacement
Other Capabilities:
• Combination Oil Filtration and Cooler System
• Vacuum Dehydration for water removal
• Off-line Filter skids - 20 LPM to 300 LPM
• Filtration Systems - 3 microns to 25 microns
• Achieving A Target Cleanliness Level; Report will indicate actual level of ISO 4406:99, ISO 4406:87 and/or NAS 1638
Using:
o Internormen Contam-ination Monitor CCS 2
o Internormen Micro-scope (Optical Counter)
With over 17 branches across the region, sophisticated equipments and technical personnel and huge experience in the similar field makes AFI one of the unique companies to cater these services in the region.