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Oil Analysis Without Particle Counting?
John S. Micetic, Chemist, US Army Corps of Engineers,Hydroelectric
Design Center
Generation of wear particles is a normal process for all operational
system in a power generation process. Abandoning practices of
monitoring wear (and contaminants) would be a grave mistake, because
the essential information that predictive maintenance practices
are based on will not be available. Such info is also valuable
in assessing the condition and serviceability of lubricant(s),
and to evaluate the effectiveness of the filtration systems used.
If I would be in charge of reliability in this power plant,
rather than abandoning routine particle count analysis, I would
do the following:
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Verify that samples were drawn from the required area (i.e.
return line upstream of the filter while system is operating),
and proper sampling procedures were followed.
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Verify that the person(s) running the analyzer followed proper
procedures during the calibration (if applicable) and actual
analysis.
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Verify accuracy and reliability of in-house used instrument
by sending a few samples (already in-house measured) to an
independent lab.
See other responses
to this Readers Challenge.
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