Abrasive wear can cause a chain reaction in lubricated machinery. The typical chain reaction is:

• Abrasive particles become work hardened.

• Work hardened particles produce more particles.

• New particles become work hardened.

• Chain reaction continues until the particles are removed by filtration or the machine fails.

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Effective Contamination Control for Lubrication Professionals

Join Noria's Jim Fitch for Effective Contamination Control training in Raleigh, NC on November 14-16 and learn how to extend machine and lubricant life by up to 10 times.

Book Bits: Extend Time Between Outages by 50%?

From the "Practical Plant Failure Analysis":

As every reliability professional has seen, another area where the value of failure analysis commonly isn't utilized involves the practice of routinely scheduled outages. Should maintenance be scheduled based on the position of the sun or the moon and end up with monthly or annual outages? What is the real difference between a scheduled outage and a breakdown? The need for maintenance has to be recognized but in many cases the time between these "scheduled failures" can be greatly lengthened by analysis of the need for the various phases of the outage. We have never seen a situation where, after a competent and detailed analysis, the time between outages hasn't been increased by at least 50%.

More information about "Practical Plant Failure Analysis "

Test your knowledge and prepare for ICML lubrication and oil analysis certification.

Question: Where on a gear tooth might you see pitting?

Get the answer.

"We recently had an oil sample of turbine oil fail the water separability test (ASTM 1401) at two labs and pass at another lab. The results from the two labs where the sample failed are 5-25-50 and 3-24-53. The results for the sample that passed was 40-40-0. What could cause the results to be so different?"

Based on these results, it is likely that the lab that came back with 40-40-0 didn't actually run the test. I would tend to believe the first two labs.

This is generally pretty easy to confirm. Just mix equal parts of the oil with water in a cocktail blender. Pour the mixture in a graduated cylinder. If the oil and water separate completely and quickly (in less than 30 minutes), then it's probably a 40-40-0.

Jim Fitch, Noria Corporation

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Resources

An Imperative Link in the Reliability Chain
Prohibit contaminant entry and improve your bottom line. www.des-case.com
615-672-8800

Tap into the latest
industry expertise. Non-commercial, practical information.
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www.molykote.com

The TestMate Contamination Monitor (TCM)
continuously measures solid contamination inline and provides instantaneous readings as an ISO code within in a 4" diameter case.
E-mail. 800-722-481

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