Book Chapter,
Tribology Data Handbook, an Excellent Friction, Lubrication, and wear Resource.
Edited by E. Richard Booser.

Whenever a proactive maintenance strategy is applied, three steps are necessary to insure that its benefits are achieved. Since proactive maintenance, by definition, involves continuous monitoring and controlling of machine failure root causes, the first step is simply to set a target. or standard, associated with each root cause.

In oil analysis, root causes of greatest importance relate to fluid contamination (particles. moisture, heat, coolant, etc.) and additive degradation. However, the process of defining precise and challenging targets (e.g., high cleanliness) is only the first step. Control of the fluid’s conditions within these targets must then be achieved and sustained. This is the second step and often includes an audit of how fluids become contaminated and then systematically eliminating these entry points. Often better filtration and the use of separators are required.

The third step is the vital action element of providing the feedback loop of an oil analysis program. When exceptions occur (e.g., over target results) remedial actions can then be immediately commissioned. Using the proactive maintenance strategy. contamination control becomes a disciplined activity of monitoring and controlling high fluid cleanliness, not a crude activity of trending dirt levels.

Finally, when the life extension benefits of proactive maintenance are flanked by the early warning benefits of predictive maintenance. a comprehensive condition-based maintenance program results. While proactive maintenance stresses root cause control. predictive maintenance targets the detection of incipient failure of both the fluid’s properties and machine components like bearings and gears. Following the oil sampling procedures. selection of appropriate sample testing procedures, and interpretation of test results outlined in this section. immediate corrective action can then be directed to effectively avoid failure chain reactions and further self-destruction.

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Every industrial organization has experienced the consequences of shoddy maintenance: contract penalties, junked parts, injuries, catastrophic damage, ballooning costs, missed shipping dates, irate customers, and sickly quarterly financial reports. Today, machinery and equipment can be maintained to achieve useful operating lives many times those attainable just a few years ago. For oil lubricated machinery, the opportunities surround what is commonly referred to as proactive maintenance.

Carefully monitoring and controlling the conditions of the oil (nurturing) can systematically eliminate many of the root causes of failure. Case studies of highly successful organizations show that oil analysis plays a central role in this nurturing activity. For oil analysis to succeed, the user organization must first define the goals of the effort.

Some people view oil analysis as a tool to help them time oil changes. Others view it in terms of its fault detection ability. Still others apply it to a strategy for contamination control and filter performance monitoring. In fact, when a program is well designed and implemented, oil analysis can do all of these things and more. The key is defining what the goals will be and designing a program that will effectively meet them. One might refer to it as a ready-aim-fire strategy. The ready has to do with education on the subject of oil analysis and the development of the program goals. The aim uses the knowledge from the education to design a program that effectively meets the goals. The fire executes the plan and finetunes it through continuous improvement.

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The most common methods for initial detection of abnormal levels of wear debris in used oils include elemental analysis, ferrous density analysis (DR, etc.), particle counting and patch testing. For some users, because of the criticality of the application, all of these screening tests for wear metals are integrated into the routine test slate.

In such cases, when sampling is done correctly, it would be rare for the abnormal production of wear metals to go undetected. However, when only one or two of these methods are routinely deployed, there is a distinct risk that an incipient (early stage) failure condition may be missed.

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Book Chapter. Automotive Lubricants and Testing. Edited by George Totten and Simon Tung

Most oil analysis performed in North America is done on diesel engine crankcase oils, primarily for large fleets in the transportation and off-road equipment industries. Ranking second would be the analysis of lubricants used in stationary industrial machinery including compressors, turbines, gearing, bearing lubes, and hydraulics. Far down the list is engine oil analysis performed on crankcase lubes from automotive fleets or privately owned cars and trucks.

Although there are a few isolated exceptions, condition monitoring of passenger car motor oils (PCMOs) has not yet emerged as a strong market. There are several understandable reasons for this. One is the fact that most car owners are not interested in paying a premium to extend engine life. Most car owners seem to be satisfied with the current engine life expectancy. This is evidenced by the fact that less than 10 % of PCMOs in use are synthetic formulations despite their widely promoted benefits.

Unlike commercial and industrial applications, in which machine owners often run equipment to their end of useful life, car owners are more commonly enticed to sell earlier for newer models. After all, why invest in engine life extension when the benefit of the investment would only be gained by the next owner of the vehicle?

Sampling is another impediment. Automobiles are not fitted with convenient oil sampling valves, nor are these valves easy to retrofit on engines. The only practical alternative is to obtain a sample from the dipstick port by drop-tube vacuum sampling or from the oil pan drain port. Neither of these locations is suitable for obtaining a representative sample.

The other factor is the cost and turnaround time of getting the data. Although laboratory automation has increasingly enabled basic tests to be performed quickly and with minimal cost of labor, routine oil analysis is still expensive for personal car owners. Some instruments are actually an integration of several conventional oil analysis sensors and often include viscometry, molecular spectroscopy, and atomic spectroscopy, typically with no needed glassware or sample preparation steps. So too, many new onboard sensors have been introduced that monitor key oil properties in real time. They displace the need for oil sampling and can alert the car owner to the optimal timing of an oil change or the presence of aberrant oil properties and wear metals.

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Every industrial organization has experienced the consequences of shoddy maintenance: contract penalties, junked parts, injuries, catastrophic damage, ballooning costs, missed shipping dates, irate customers, and sickly quarterly financial reports. Gone are the days when a machine had a predictable service life, after which it was replaced, continuing the cycle. Today, machinery and equipment can be maintained to achieve useful operating lives many times those attainable just a few years ago. For oil lubricated machinery there are many opportunities in what is commonly referred to as proactive maintenance.

By carefully monitoring and controlling the conditions of the oil (nurturing), many of the root causes of failure are systematically eliminated. Case studies of highly successful organizations show that oil analysis plays an important, central role in this nurturing activity. But first, in order for oil analysis to succeed the user organization must define what the goals will be.

Some people see oil analysis as a tool to help them time oil changes. Others view it in terms of its fault detection ability. Still, others apply it to a strategy relating to contamination control and filter performance monitoring. In fact, when a program is well designed and implemented, oil analysis can do all of these things and more. The key is defining what the goals will be and designing a program that will effectively meet them. One might refer to it as a ready-aim-fire strategy. The ready has to do with education on the subject of oil analysis and the development of the program goals. The aim uses the knowledge from the education to design a program that effectively meets the goals. The fire executes the plan and fine-tunes through continuous improvement.

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The practice of transferring suspended particles to the surface of a membrane for analysis has been around for decades. It is perhaps the earliest method for inspecting solid contaminants and wear debris in a used sample of oil. It is of no surprise that these methods have enduring use today. In fact, some are the basis of recently adopted standardized methods by ASTM and ISO.

While membrane-based procedures for preparing particles for analysis can be time consuming and messy (usually involving the use of glassware and solvents), the benefits can be substantial compared to alternative methods. The main advantage is the ability to both quantitatively and qualitatively describe particle contamination, depending on the method used. As in the case of microscopic particle counting, you see what you’re counting and can confirm visually what appears to be a particle. You can also characterize particle type (e.g., dirt, wear debris, rust, fibers, etc.).

Because of the importance of these techniques to a modern and well-engineered oil analysis program, it seemed like a good time to review the options. There are actually eight different methods that are worth mentioning. Most have previously been covered in Noria publications, but a couple have not. We’ve used all but one of these methods in our failure investigation work here at Noria. A narrative of the methods is provided below and a summary that compares and contrasts them is shown in Table 1.

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Without the lens of a microscope, bacteria and viruses might only be recognized as painful symptoms of sickness and disease by those who are infected. Just as technology is an important enabler in human pathology, it also serves in the detection and diagnosis of a host of machine health issues, including the invasion of lubricant contamination.

However, for most machinery maintainers, the threat posed by fluid contamination runs contrary to human intuition. Just like a viral infection, in lubrication, it’s what we can’t see that hurts us most. The naked eye is generally blind to the destructive potential of most types of contaminants. In fact, none of our “unaided” human senses can be relied upon to detect and recognize significant concentrations of contamination.

When I first entered the oil analysis field in the 1980s, portable and user-level oil analysis technology was years ahead of its time. This is not so today. Contaminant monitoring instruments have advanced rapidly in the past two decades as has the awareness of its importance. What was previously only the domain of analytical chemists is now an essential maintenance tool available to field technicians and condition monitoring specialists. Thankfully, the “now generation” is largely a population of sophisticated consumer electronics users who also have an insatiable appetite for instant information.

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