Packing, hoisting, baling, shearing, and sorting each ask something different of a cylinder.
A refuse body may run a packing cycle at nearly every stop on its route. A baler or compactor may cycle all shift against material that pushes back unevenly. Along the way, the cylinders deal with grit, broken glass, liquids, corrosive residue, routine washdown, and the occasional load nobody should have put in the container.
Durability matters, but so does fit. Cylinders on waste equipment share space with panels, linkages, hoses, guards, and valves, and on a truck body every added pound counts against payload. Mounting, port location, rod protection, and service access all shape how long a cylinder lasts on the job.
Aurelius Manufacturing designs custom welded hydraulic cylinders for these machines alongside the OEM engineers who build them. We start with the function, the duty cycle, and the working conditions, then develop a cylinder that suits the equipment and the production plan.
Building or redesigning waste and recycling equipment? Bring us the application, and our engineers will dig into it with yours.
Waste & Recycling Applications
Collecting, compacting, baling, cutting, and sorting each put a cylinder under a different kind of stress. A packer cylinder lives with repetition. A shear cylinder lives with sudden load release. A roll-off hoist lifts heavy containers that are rarely loaded evenly.
Start with any of the functions below, or with a machine that does not appear here. Aurelius will look at the loads, motion, mounting, and operating environment with your engineering team.
The right configuration comes from the function. These are common starting points on waste and recycling equipment, and Aurelius can help your team decide which ones fit.
Multistage designs for hoist and ejection functions where long travel has to retract into a short space.
Hydraulic power in both directions for packer panels, rams, and mechanisms that must push and pull under load.
End-of-stroke deceleration for panels and heavy mechanisms that would otherwise arrive at full speed.
Connections routed through the rod end when the barrel end is buried inside a grapple or crowded structure.
Cartridge valves, port blocks, tubelines, and valve pads that shorten hose runs on a crowded body.
Integrated position sensing for automated arms, sorting functions, and controls that track cylinder travel.
Design Considerations
When a cylinder on waste equipment comes back early, the bore size is seldom the reason. Rod damage, mount wear, contaminated seals, and fittings placed where debris can reach them are more common suspects.
Sizing comes first, but the review should not stop there. Aurelius works through these questions with your engineers while the surrounding design can still change.
Have a cylinder that keeps coming back from the field? Send us the application and its service history, and we will take a look with your team.
Why Aurelius
Bring us the application. Bring the service history, too.
Plenty of waste and recycling equipment runs well on standard catalog cylinders. The picture changes when the mounting points sit where no standard cylinder expects them, the hopper leaves no room for hoses, the same cylinder keeps returning from the field, or the machine needs sensing a catalog part was never built to include.
Aurelius starts from the application. Our engineers look at what the cylinder has to do, how it is loaded, what it is plumbed into, and what it will take to build and maintain. Sometimes the answer is an added feature. Other times it is a simpler mount, a better port location, or one less part. You can start with a finished drawing, an existing cylinder and its failure history, or a function that still needs a solution.
Quality starts before machining. Every shipment of tubing and rod stock is checked on arrival, and material with finish defects goes back, because rod finish and seal life are closely connected. Every completed cylinder is tested before it ships, and the people building it are trained with long careers in mind.
Aurelius has been solving engineering problems in Braham, Minnesota since 1926. For OEMs building waste equipment in volume, that experience carries from the first prototype cylinder through recurring production.
Yes. Aurelius designs and manufactures custom welded hydraulic cylinders for OEMs, including the functions found on refuse bodies such as packer and sweep panels, tailgates, ejectors, and lift arms. Each cylinder is developed around the body's loads, geometry, and duty cycle.
Ready to talk through a cylinder? Start with the Build a Cylinder form or request a quote, and our team will follow up.