When adding grease to bearings through grease fittings or other ports, it is usually best to add grease while machinery is in operation if safety permits. Depending on the application, this allows excessive grease, with the aid of the moving bearing elements, to be pushed out of the bearing track to an adjacent cavity, vent port or other exit pathway.

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Oil Analysis Level I Training and Certification are coming to Houston, Texas. Training: October 10-12. ICML Certification Exam: October 13.

Book Bits: Determining Expected Service Life

From the "Insider Secrets to Hydraulics":

The expected service life of individual components within a hydraulic system varies and is influenced by a number of factors. These include the type and construction of the component, circuit design, operating load and duty-cycle. Machine manufacturers determine the expected service life of components within a particular system, by considering these variables in combination with historical data on achieved service life. This information is normally available from machine manufacturers upon request. To minimize the chances of hydraulic components failing in service, the machine manufacturers' recommendations on expected service life should be used to schedule component change-outs.

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"We have a cooling tower fan gearbox, which due to the operating environment, runs very hot (>180°F). We recently inspected the gearbox and found a lot of sludge and deposits and a strong sulfur smell. Someone suggested we use synthetic oil instead of the mineral oil currently used to prevent this from recurring. What are your thoughts?"

While it is true that synthetic oils can be used at higher temperatures because they do not thin out as quickly as the corresponding grade of mineral oil, and provide better oxidation resistance, this may not be the best solution in this instance. This is particularly true, because the sulfur smell you refer to is likely the thermal breakdown of the EP additive in the oil. Switching to a synthetic oil will do nothing to prevent thermal additive decomposition, if this is the problem.

A better solution may be to install an off-line cooling system by piping out a line from the gearbox with a small gear pump to circulate the oil through an external cooling system, returning the cooled oil to the gearbox sump. This will not only help to cool the oil and prevent thermal and oxidative breakdown, but it will also have the effect of increasing the gearbox sump size, allowing the oil more opportunity to cool the gearbox.

A nice side benefit of this arrangement is that the off-line system can also be equipped with a filter to help keep the oil clean, and an oil sampling valve to take oil samples on a component that is often difficult to sample on the run.

Mark Barnes, Noria Corporation

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