Despite the good intentions of many organizations, real improvements in contamination control often remain an elusive concept. They know that invisible particles are one of the largest single contributors to progressive wear of machinery. Yet with each passing year, no significant enhancements in maintenance practices resulting in greater fluid cleanliness are implemented. With today’s selection of IoT fluid monitoring systems and free, practical advice for contamination control practices, no plant should let contamination run rampant any longer.

After all, being “generally clean” does not result in incremental reliability improvements. Only higher levels of cleanliness accomplish this. No improvement in contamination control means no reduction in particle-induced machine wear and failure. Unlike invisible particles, a failed machine in need of repair is a tangible task with an immediate tangible result; that is, the machine returns to operation. Yet, most of us have been taught that problem solving (reactive maintenance) should always be subordinate to problem prevention (proactive maintenance). It’s amazing how knowing is often not doing.

The post Contamination Control Strategies for Planned Oil Cleanliness appeared first on Tesibis.

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.

The post Elements of an Oil Analysis Program appeared first on Tesibis.

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.

The post Fundamentals Of Fluid Analysis for Industrial Machinery appeared first on Tesibis.

Analysis of hydraulic fluids, if done properly, can suggest maintenance procedures to improve hydraulic equipment reliability and extend system life. Significant cost savings can result. Where to take a sample There are two types of fluid sampling: static and dynamic. Static sampling involves extracting a fluid sample from a reservoir or a dead zone, where there is slight fluid movement. Little useful information is gained from static sampling because: • contaminant concentration gradients exist within static fluids. Water and particles tend to segregate and settle due to gravity. Therefore, samples taken from different sections within the static container yield completely different results, and • particles from reservoirs may describe system histories, but provide little information on what is happening now. Large reservoir volumes dampen out dynamic changes and conditions within the system.

The post Hydraulic Fluid Analysis: Avoiding the Potential Pitfalls appeared first on Tesibis.

Oil contamination may be defined as any foreign material found in the lubricant which is not added by design. Usually, contaminants are not beneficial, and may be detrimental, to the performance of the oil and/or the operating machinery. Contamination is a significant root cause of machine and lubricant degradation and failure. Often overlooked as a source of failure because its impact is usually slow and imperceptible, contamination is both a significant threat to reliability and quality efforts, and an opportunity because improvements are very attainable1. Research on an array of fluid dependent machinery such as bearings and rotating equipment, hydraulic systems, gearboxes, and diesel engines, clearly supports that often machine reliability is a function of contamination control.

The post An Introduction to Fluid Contamination Analysis appeared first on Tesibis.

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.

The post Analysis of In-Service Automotive Engine Oils appeared first on Tesibis.

The best maintenance techniques for mechanical machinery are condition-based techniques. Condition-based maintenance is maintenance prescribed by the real-time needs of the machine according to changes in specific operation conditions. These conditions fall into two categories.

The first set of conditions are those that present a risk to a machine’s health if allowed to persist. These are operating and environmental conditions that precede failure, i.e., root causes of failure. They are not failure symptoms, which is after the fact. Examples of root cause conditions are misalignment, lubricant contamination, and overheating. The activity of detecting and correcting root cause conditions is referred to as proactive maintenance. Its singular purpose is to extend a machine’s operating life.

The post Lubricant-Based Techniques for the Condition Monitoring of Non-Circulating Gear and Bearing Systems appeared first on Tesibis.

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.

The post Successful Oil Analysis Practices in the Industrial Plant appeared first on Tesibis.

With the widespread use of plant-level particle counters, maintenance organizations are becoming more sophisticated and skilled in the management and control of oil cleanliness. This has led to the discovery of a host of new tactics and practices that involve combining the particle counter with other important onsite oil analysis tools and methods.

Contamination can be defined as any unwanted substance or energy that enters or contacts the oil. Contaminants can appear in many forms, and can be highly destructive to the oil, its additives and machine surfaces. It is often overlooked as a source of failure because its impact is usually slow and imperceptible yet, given time, the damage is analogous to eating up the machine from the inside out. While it is not practical to attempt to eradicate contamination from in-service lubricants, control of contaminant levels within acceptable limits can be accomplished and is vitally important.

The post Why Onsite Particle Counting Makes Sense appeared first on Tesibis.

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.

The post Comparison of Particle Counts Between Eight Commercial Oil Analysis Laboratories appeared first on Tesibis.

Condition monitoring can be easily performed by following a few simple principles. Among these principles include monitoring two sets of conditions:

1. The operating and environmental conditions that precede failure, and
2. Early-stage failure symptoms

Several models are presented that show the benefits of monitoring machine conditions, as well as the consequences of ignoring them . Also discussed is the integration of both proactive and predictive maintenance techniques to extend machine life.

The post Interpreting Contaminant Analysis Trends into a Proactive and Predictive Maintenance Strategy appeared first on Tesibis.

Condition monitoring can be easily performed by following a few simple principles. Among these principles include monitoring two sets of conditions:

1. The operating and environmental conditions that precede failure, and
2. Early-stage failure symptoms

Several models are presented that show the benefits of monitoring machine conditions, as well as the consequences of ignoring them. Also discussed is the integration of both proactive and predictive maintenance techniques to extend machine life.

The post Interpreting Contaminant Analysis Trends into a Proactive and Predictive Maintenance Strategy appeared first on Tesibis.

It can take just one breakdown of a critical machine to spin an entire plant into an immediate production halt. At this point, it is too late for the plant manager to do anything but call a service technician, then gasp for air while counting the lost production.

Each time a breakdown occurs, a manager vows to begin a rigid maintenance program as soon as time and money permits. But that never happens. Sound familiar?

With all of the attention maintenance advances have received in recent years in the trade press and through technical shows and conferences, it is hard to imagine that any lant would not have implemented an improved maintenance program. Yet advanced maintenance techniques commonly are neglected. Selecting a program that fits the needs of a particular plant environment can be a difficult task.

The post Proactive Maintenance is a Blueprint for Success appeared first on Tesibis.

According to major industries throughout the world, it’s time to throw out your old ideas on machine maintenance. The costsaving trend is toward a maintenance program that targets the root causes of machine wear and failure. Predictive and preventive methods are out: pro-active maintenance is in.

Why? Because proactive maintenance methods are currently saving industries of all sizes thousands, even millions of dollars on machine maintenance every year. This concept of saving large amounts on maintenance, however, may be tough for some to grasp.

According to DuPont, “maintenance is the largest single controllable expenditure in a plant: In many companies it often exceeds annual net profit.”‘ Add to this the fact that up to 90% of some companies’ maintenance work involves expensive (and productivity-killing) breakdown repair, and you can easily see the predicament. The problem of costly maintenance has truly reached a serious level, but as some companies have found out, and more come to realize every day, their maintenance costs can be cut drastically by establishing a “proactive” line of defense.

The post Proactive Maintenance Cleans Up on Predictive/Preventive Methods appeared first on Tesibis.

The field of maintenance technology is going through a revolution of change. 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 Iives many times more attainable than just a few years ago.

The 1980s bore the popular practice of predictive maintenance and condition monitoring to combat rising maintenance costs. In the 1990s, we implement predictive maintenance with greater confidence and precision. These early warnings have proven effective at reducing the magnitude of failure and amount of unscheduled downtime; however, no real progress has been made in reducing frequency. Any maintenance strategy targeting the reduction of failure frequency must address the fundamental causes of failure. Such a strategy of eliminating causes would be “proactive” to failure, not “reactive” to failure.

The post Proactive Maintenance–A Cost Reduction Strategy appeared first on Tesibis.

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.).

The post The Power of the Patch.  Comparing Particle Analysis Methods appeared first on Tesibis.

Equipment maintenance costs represent an unclaimed gold mine of savings opportunities. Yet deep maintenance cost reductions have evaded the efforts of even the most diligent and sophisticated operations. Why? Because there has been a general lack of emphasis on maintenance that corrects root causes, as opposed to responding to the symptoms or results of failure.

A shift in maintenance philosophy is needed, one that targets life extension and avoids the onset of component degradation.

The philosophy must not be reactive but proactive. A true proactive maintenance program must stabilize healthy, non-degrading, non-decaying, operating conditions by always being ahead of the first indication of failure.

The post Proactive maintenance targets extending machine life appeared first on Tesibis.

The field of maintenance technology going through a revolution of change. Gone are the t 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 that attainable just a few years ago.

In the past, the popular practice of predictive maintenance and condition monitoring to combat rising maintenance costs. In the 1990s, we implement predictive maintenance with greater confidence and precision. These early warnings have proven effective at reducing the magnitude of failure and amount of unscheduled downtime; however, no real progress has been made in reducing frequency. Any maintenance strategy targeting the reduction of failure frequency must address the fundamental causes of failure. Such a strategy of eliminating causes would be “proactive” to failure, not “reactive” to failure.

This approach, known as proactive maintenance, is a promising wave of new maintenance technology. Its fundamental and logical approach seeks to make major inroads into the cost-driven maintenance industry this decade.

The post Proactive Maintenance the Cost-Reduction Strategy appeared first on Tesibis.