By Jim Fitch
Practicing Oil Analysis Magazine
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.