| On
July 7, 2004 we asked:
For the past three years, your company
has successfully been using on-site oil analysis. Currently,
as many as 500 samples per quarter are analyzed in the
on-site lab.
Over the past week, condition-based
maintenance personnel have noticed that the particle count
results seem to be backward, i.e., more particles are
showing up after the in-line filter than before the filter.
Initially, it was suspected that
the unusual particle counts were due to a labeling mix-up,
confusion on the direction of oil flow through the filter,
a damaged filter or background contamination. Your plan
initially is to resample. If the results are the same,
you will change the filters and then sample again.
What other steps could help identify
the root cause of the abnormal particle counts?
Thanks to everyone
that participated in this Readers Challenge. We received
a great response. Below is this week's winner and some
of the other responses that we received.
This Week's Winner:
Doug McBride, Reliability TEAM Specialist,
Temple Inland
Click
here to see the winning response.
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