Visually communicate oil cleanliness where possible. We recently began displaying our target ISO cleanliness and our current cleanliness directly on the bigger oil sumps like the turbine oil sumps. We use green 8.5" x 11" paper with our target of 14/11 written on it. Right beside it, we use another colored sheet (blue, yellow, red, or green) with the current cleanliness printed on it.

We place both sheets in separate sheet protectors and simply tape them next to each other on the sump. This increases oil-cleanliness awareness and helps operators know exactly where our portable lube oil purifiers are needed the most. (Cyril Ontai, Predictive Maintenance Specialist, Hawaiian Electric Company)

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Book Bits: Monitoring New Oil Cleanliness

From the "Lubrication Excellence 2006 Conference Proceedings"

From the paper titled "New Oil Cleanliness: Is Super Clean the Answer?"

Every end-user should monitor the cleanliness of the oil at four points or locations as it passes through his/her plant to provide some valuable feedback about the quality of their oil handling practices. End-users should be aware of the ISO cleanliness value (and the water content in ppm) of the oil that is delivered to their facility, both in drums and in bulk (or totes). This will help the plant lubrication specialist assess the handling of the oil by your supplier before it is received at the plant.

If the new oil is not up to an acceptable standard, it will cause additional resources and costs to the plant to clean the oil. The end-user should occasionally sample and analyze the oil just prior to it going into the plant equipment to indicate the in-plant quality of handling the oil. The oil should also be sampled and measured after it has been installed in the equipment and has circulated for a day or two. This will provide a better baseline for changes in the cleanliness during normal use and as an indicator of the cleanliness of the equipment into which the new oil was added, that is the oil drain (change) effectiveness.

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"I've been told that fine filtration can filter additives out of gear oil. Is this correct?"

If the gear oil is formulated without solid additives and if the additives are properly blended (fully dissolved) when new, these additives should not be filterable (even at one micron) until:

1. The additives decompose (dead additives) from normal use

2. The additives (polar additives such as AW, EP, rust inhibitors, etc.) become attached to solid particles and then are filtered out

3. The additives condense (desolubilize) into solid suspensions from cold temperatures

4. The additives mix with an incompatible lubricant or other contaminant forming solid suspensions

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