Machinery Lubrication

Machinery Lubrication March April 2016

Machinery Lubrication magazine published by Noria Corporation

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FROM THE FIELD O i l A n a l y s i s A POWER bnormal wear is not like a bad rash, which tends to go away on its own in time. Instead, it's more like early-stage cancer, which requires intervention and treatment. Oil analysis has exceptional abilities to detect abnormal conditions, both root cause (like dirty oil) and predictive (active failure in progress). Root cause failure analysis is post- mortem. It starts with failure and works backward in search of one or more root causes. The knowledge gained reveals a plan of needed change that will prevent or delay the recurrence of similar failures. Failure is indeed a strategic teacher of better ways to design, manufacture and maintain machines. The whole purpose of machine condition monitoring, like oil analysis, is to enable organizations to foretell the future. It produces data that points to the existing problems and the seriousness of these prob - lems. Action is required to confirm a problem's existence, determine and verify the root cause, and finally to remedy the problem. Sadly, this is where most oil anal- ysis programs are delinquent. The fault lies equally with the laboratory and the end user. The Lost Art of Troubleshooting Oil analysis can't fix a failed machine. That's what mechanics do. It can provide pre-failure alerts, both cautionary and crit- ical. If a root cause is detected, such as the wrong oil, dirty oil or wet oil, these condi- tions can be remediated quickly. This is proactive maintenance at its best. Approximately 10 to 20 percent of samples analyzed by oil analysis laborato- ries have one or more non-conforming conditions. The vast majority of these are predictive in nature, like abnormal wear. AS I SEE IT Jim Fi t ch | Nori a Corpor at ioN of Root Cause The PRE-FAILURE ANALYSIS 2 | March - April 2016 | www.machinerylubrication.com

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