WHY SCHEDULED OIL CHANGES AREN'T ENOUGH TO MITIGATE LUBRICANT CONTAMINATION

There are few problems more insidious or damaging to large industrial machinery than contaminated lubricant.

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Potential consequences run the gamut, from subtle issues like increased operating temperature, to more severe issues like machine frothing, total machine failure or permanent structural damage to the equipment. In "System Approach to Contamination Control," Vickers, Inc., found that "proper selection and placement of contamination control devices... eliminates (the root cause of) up to 80% of hydraulic system failures."

In fact, Bearing Maintenance Handbook, SKF, states that proper lubrication and ideal conditions could theoretically result in "infinite life" for bearings, meaning that the sky is the limit in the potential benefits of lubricant improvement. And aside from the obvious lost uptime, this can also result in expensive product integrity investigations to rigorously stress-test the entire work flow.

One factor exacerbating the problem is that early signs of lubricant contamination are so subtle and diverse that they’re often over looked by hard working crews. But even if these issues never culminate in the worstcase scenario, the aggregate wear and loss of efficiency over an extended period — and spread across a fleet of machines — can still result in a massive impact on revenue and production scheduling.

While regularly scheduled lubricant-replacement routines are the standard solution to this challenge, modern innovations have made it possible to achieve higher levels of efficiency, reliability and cost-effectiveness with an oil-analysis routine. Such a routine is more adaptive to the specifics of your project and can save compounding amounts of time and money by extending uptime and reducing maintenance costs throughout your equipment.

Causes of Lubricant Contamination