Continuing Education is essential as you progress in your career. An engineer with a degree is just a starting point. Real world experience and specialized knowledge will always be superior, and experienced professionals hold the expertise and knowledge you need to hone your skills in your chosen field.
Moving from reactive to predictive maintenance can significantly improve the efficiency of any industrial process. By analyzing oil samples on a regular basis, technicians can monitor the condition of machinery and predict potential issues before they occur. This allows for planned maintenance, reducing downtime and increasing productivity.
There’s no better tool than oil analysis for predicting and preventing problems and optimizing machine performance. However, to understand what is really happening, you should consider multiple inputs involving your processes, practices, personnel, and application of the lubricant.
The past few years have been a challenge in obtaining the necessary lubricants to maintain equipment. Because of this, it becomes increasingly important to optimize lubricants in use and currently in inventory to prevent depletion. By making a few adjustments to your processes you can preserve lubricant condition and improve longevity.
Never assume your new oil is clean. Always verify its condition with oil analysis to confirm viscosity, composition, and contamination levels. It'll confirm you received the correct oil and the next steps required to prepare it for application.
Case study on a cooling tower fan gearbox failure caused by reduced sampling frequency and trend analysis, which contributed to a lack of maintenance action. This resulted in an $800,000 gearbox failure.
Learn how to obtain a multilayered oil sample from 55-gallon drums using a hand-held vacuum pump or a pipette style sampling tube.
The Journey of the Lubricant® is a series of stages, segregating your lubricant management program into 5 sequential steps during your lubricant's life on-site. Within these stages, dimensional sampling and oil analysis is key to maintaining the health of your lubricant.
Root cause analysis is a powerful tool for investigating equipment problems when combined with oil analysis. It helps to identify what happened, why it happened, and what can be done to prevent it from happening again.
It is sometimes difficult to decide which test method should be used to determine water content in lubricating oils. Whichever method is used, one thing is certain – water is one of the major causes of lubricant, component, and machine failure.
