We’re told machines should not be allowed to swallow air. But what if they do?  What harm could be caused by this bubbly stuff anyway? Do we really have to make the machine burp? Will a few pats on the back do the trick?  For many of you, air contamination is no laughing matter. Why? Because air contamination is a serious condition.  There are five deadly problems associated with aerated oil. By aerated oil, I’m referring to entrained air, foam or both, which is the usual case.

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Moisture is generally referred to as a chemical contaminant when suspended in lubricating oils. Its destructive effects in bearings can reach or exceed that of particle contamination, depending on conditions. Like particles, control must be exercised to minimize water accumulation and damage to bearing surfaces. Once water enters a machine with bearings (i.e., an engine, turbine, or gear box) it may move through several chemical and physical states. Water will often enter an oil in one of the five following ways.

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Anybody who has been in the lubrication field for at least a couple of years has likely been badgered by problems relating to air contamination. Indeed, aeration and foam present many serious reliability concerns which merit immediate attention by machinery maintainers. However, for most people, the causes are too complex to troubleshoot, leaving the root-cause mystery unsolved. Sometimes an oil change provides a suitable remedy, but too often it serves as only a temporary fix. In other words, there is a need to find why it happened.

Laboratory researchers have conducted numerous studies over the years relating to air contamination. From this body of work, we’ve learned many interesting new facts that help us both diagnose the problem and prescribe corrective actions. Some of these new insights into the causes and effects of air entrainment and foaming problems were discussed in the article “The Perils of Aerated Oil – Let Your Machine Burp”, published in the January 2005 issue of Practicing Oil Analysis.

In this column, I want to share more snippets of information that can be useful in the control of air contamination. I’m guessing that even seasoned oil analysis and lubrication professionals will pick up a pointer or two.

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Historically, water contaminated oil has been said to exist in two states:

• Dissolved water (bound molecularly in the matrix of the oil)
• Free water (not molecularly bound)

In the last 30 years or so, most of the literature, including Noria’s publications, refer to water as having three states. Free water has been redefined as being water that, by force of gravity, will phase out of the oil. This means it will separate below (most common) or above the oil phase depending on oil density.

The new third state is emulsified water. Water that is held tightly in micro-globules in the oil is no longer referred to as free water. Instead, it has been more accurately referred to as emulsified water, or a “micro-emulsion”.

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You don’t have to remove what you don’t allow to enter. Indeed, it’s hard to challenge the logic and value of controlling water ingression, but because moisture is everywhere, achieving bone-dry oil through exclusion alone may not be practical or even necessary.

Lubricating oils have different degrees of hygroscopicity (water-loving tendencies), making the control of all dissolved water an almost futile exercise. However, for many applications, it’s the free and emulsified water that is the most destructive and, hence, the central target for control and inspection.

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Countless times, I’ve devoted this column to stressing the virtues of contamination control. With each passing year, we seem to receive more and more user feedback detailing and validating the business case for clean, dry and cool oil. Of course it’s one thing to preach its value, but it’s quite something else to actually achieve and sustain near-contaminant-free conditions. Therefore, it is this subject that I’ll tackle with the current and a few future columns, beginning with exclusion and removal of water.

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Most of us are well aware of the enormous damage water can exact on a machine and its lubricants. However, the magnitude of this potential destruction seems to depend directly on five enabling factors. These factors are listed below and are further diagramed in Figure 1.

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Here is the latest component for hydraulic system filtration and contamination control Water is a very serious contaminant in oil hydraulic systems. Yet, water contamination is rarely identified, poorly understood, and, until recently, considered very difficult to remove. In most cases, the damage done by water is blamed on other factors. Water often works together with other contaminants to produce a combined synergistic degradation of fluid and components.

In the past, hydraulic filtration processes were designed to separate solid contaminants from the hydraulic fluid and, over the last 20 years, the hydraulics industry has made great progress in implementing and maintaining well-conceived solid-contaminant filtration on hydraulic equipment. However, the recent introduction of water-removing filters appears destined to change the focus of fluid power contamination control.

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Water, once in an oil, is in constant search of a stable existence. Unlike oil, the water molecule is polar, which greatly limits its ability to dissolve; and many additives have polar extremities which can markedly increase water solubility. Water may cling to hydrophilic metal surfaces or form a thin film around polar solid contaminants such as silica particles. If a dry air boundary exists, water molecules may simply choose to migrate out of the oil to the far more absorbent air interface. This migration can be accelerated if air and oil mix, Such as in splash lubricated and oil mist systems or any system where a stable fluid foam may exist.

If water molecules are unable to find polar compounds on which to attach, the oil is said to be saturated. Any additional water will create a supersaturated condition causing free water to be suspended or settle at the bottom of the sump. This supersaturation can also occur as a result of lower oil temperature.

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Water in a hydraulic system constitutes a very serious form of oil contamination. Technically, water contamination is rarely recognized as such, poorly understood, and, until recently, considered difficult to combat. The damage caused by water is usually attributed to other causes. Water often interacts with other types of contamination. It causes both degradation of the hydraulic oil and damage to the hydraulic components, which reinforce each other. In the past, the filtration of hydraulic oil was solely aimed at removing solid particles. The hydraulic industry has therefore made great progress over the last twenty years in the application and maintenance of well-designed filtration systems for solid particles in hydraulic oil. However, the recent introduction of water-removing filters seems destined to shift the focus in the management of hydraulic oil contamination.

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Water in a hydraulic system constitutes a very serious contaminant of the oil. Nevertheless, water contamination itself is rarely recognized, poorly understood, and until recently, considered difficult to combat. Sometimes, the damage caused by water is attributed to other types of contamination. Water often interacts with other contaminants, causing both degradation of the hydraulic oil and damage to the hydraulic components, with these effects reinforcing each other. Until now, hydraulic oil filtration has primarily focused on removing solid particles. The hydraulics industry has made significant progress in the application and maintenance of well-designed solid particle filtration systems over the past twenty years. However, the recent introduction of water-separating filters appears poised to shift the focus of oil contamination control.

The post Filters kunnen het water uit hydraulische olie verwijderen (Filters can remove the water from hydraulic oil) appeared first on Tesibis.