The monitoring of particle contamination in lubricating fluids is a critical indicator of incipient and impending failures. Recent research, under both laboratory and field conditions of the contaminant sensitivity of bearings, reveals a well defined cause and effect relationship between contaminant levels and relative machine life.

This paper discusses the contaminant sensitivity of bearings as well as turbines, diesel engines, gear systems, and hydraulic systems. Also discussed is the benefit of applying contaminant monitoring to both proactive and predictive maintenance programs. Proactive maintenance is the process of monitoring root causes (pre-degradation conditions) as opposed to predictive maintenance which focuses on impending failure conditions.

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The inclusion of particle counting in the periodic analysis of hydraulic and lubricating fluids has provided an important new advancement to machine diagnostics. With particle counting, machinery users can monitor the principal cause of failure, not just the symptoms, or results, of failure. The benefit, when particle levels are controlled, is extended machine life and reduced failure frequency. This is the objective of the growing practice of proactive maintenance.

Along with this important trend has come the practical questioning of particle counter accuracy. It is estimated that by the year 2000, as many as 50 million particle counts will be performed on fluid samples each year. Hence, a failure to do particle counting with reasonable accuracy could effectively undermine user confidence and erode this incredible rate of growth.

While calibration techniques are available for most types of particle counters, the frequency and proper use of these techniques is not well understood. Likewise, it can be questioned whether the type of fluid and test particles (calibration fluid) used in calibration of particle counters is sufficiently close to field oils and field contaminants. Additionally, accuracy is also influenced by bottle cleanliness, fluid agitation, deaeration, dilution, dilution fluid cleanliness, and operator error.

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Do you really know how your lubricants become contaminated? Have you taken an inventory of the sources of contamination and the primary points of entry? If not, you are in the majority as sadly, few organizations go to the trouble of performing a contaminant ingression study.

For many machines, the exclusion of contamination is the only way to control contamination. This is because these machines either have no filter or the filter in use is coarse, providing no practical protection in the particle size range of critical oil films.

When particles are not removed by filtration or by settling, a lubricant’s contaminant level equals the machine’s service hours multiplied by the number of particles ingressed per hour (ingression rate). For machines exposed to high ambient dust, particle counts can exceed recommended levels in just a few hours. After days of exposure, an oil can turn into more of a honing compound than a lubricating medium.

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Recently, maintenance managers and corporate executives have shown a greater interest in rising maintenance costs and failure rates. The realization of the need to curb these costs has logically brought about the field of proactive maintenance. This is a program that concentrates on minimizing downtime and maximizing machine life.

This paper discusses proactive contamination control for hydraulic and lubricating systems and describes its three step implementation process. Proactive maintenance begins with establishing appropriate cleanliness targets for each individual machine pursuant to machine specific criteria. This step sets the goal or benchmarks for each machine. The second step involves the process of selecting and implementing contaminant removal devices such as filters and separators necessary to” achieve the specified target cleanliness level. The final step is the routine monitoring of machine cleanliness at frequencies based on the previously established cleanliness target and the application conditions. This final step closes the loop and insures that “control” of fluid contaminant levels is achieved.

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This past year Practicing Oil Analysis featured many end-user case studies documenting cost savings from oil analysis. Surprisingly, the majority of these studies describe the partnering of oil analysis with contamination control*. In this issue is yet another case study, by Weyerhaeuser, deploying this same strategic combination. It is unlikely that these are random events but rather a well-defined pattern. If so, exactly what is this lesson and what is its meaning to machine reliability?

To some it might seem a little like an old tune. After all, hasn’t filtration been around nearly as long as lubrication? And, what’s new that hasn’t already been thoroughly explored and widely applied? For one, when it comes to cleanliness, knowing is definitely not doing. Many maintenance professionals know oil should be clean but the use of filtration and contamination control lacks rigor and discipline. Why?

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