Oil analysis and condition monitoring

Abstract

Lubricants are essential and expensive components of machine systems needing sampling, analysis and monitoring. Monitoring can be either performance testing or oil condition monitoring. Knowledge of the system's critical failure modes is essential for cost-effective oil and machinery monitoring. Contamination occurs by water, fuel, glycol, dirt, wrong oil, metal particulate, soot, oil degradation and additive depletion. Oil test methods include in situ or laboratory FT-IR, electronic particle counting, elemental metal measurement, X-ray fluorescence, viscosity, gas chromatography, water determination and RULER®. Condition monitoring data must be managed by storage, analysis and interpretation. Status levels must be established from the database and reported upon for individual and sequential runs of samples as condition indicators. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.