Machinery Lubrication

Machinery Lubrication September-October 2021

Machinery Lubrication magazine published by Noria Corporation

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18 | September - October 2021 | www . machinerylubrication.com A New Era for Reconditioning "Lubricants don't go bad; they simply get dirty." is cliché has been shared widely throughout the industry despite being false. Lubricants fail through various mechanisms, including loss of additives and a change of molec- ular composition of the base oil; this is far more than simply getting dirty. While sayings like these may not be completely correct, the land- scape is rapidly changing to where they may be more true than false. ink about the advances in technology, especially in fighter jets. Each iteration of jet that comes out is more technologically advanced — to the point where a human pilot is less necessary. ere will come a time where there is no longer a human inside the jet. e same advancement is happening with industrial lubricants. e question of when will be the last time we change oil in a machine should be considered. Imagine a lubricant that never fails, never goes bad, and is perpet- ually operating at its optimum performance and chemical proper- ties. e lubricant no longer needs to be changed; it is simply recon- ditioned to maintain its properties. is is the future of lubrication. In the past, reconditioning of lubricants was mostly relegated to a series of decontamination steps for the removal of water and solid particles. e lubricant was cleaned and dried and then put back into service. is practice is still in use today, where the oil is drained from a reservoir into a tote or storage vessel, and a kidney loop system is employed to get the oil to a target cleanliness and dryness state. ere is nothing wrong with this practice, but true reconditioning can go much further. At the core of reconditioning, the overall goal is to get or keep the lubricant in a "like-new" state. is means the lubricant can perform to its original capabilities without any unanticipated hiccups; reaching this state will likely require more effort than simply cleaning the fluid. We have to concern ourselves with additive levels and base oil health when deciding if reconditioning makes sense. So, what parameters should a reconditioning program be measured on? As with most programs, there would need to be a list of Key Performa nce Indicators (K PIs) to showcase that the program is responding the way we would intend. Below is a list of five poten- tial KPIs that could be easily tracked for lubricant reconditioning. CONTAMINATION CONTROL & LUBRICANT RECONDITIONING Factor: C5K Learn More: noria.com/ascend/ Factor: C5K – Contamination Control KPIs Level: KPI's (K) Stage: Contamination Control & Lubricant Reconditioning About: Defining and monitoring key performance indica- tors can increase the efficacy of contamina- tion control strategies. More about this ASCEND ™ Factor Wes Cash | Noria Corporation

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