Machinery Lubrication magazine published by Noria Corporation
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1487844
24 | November - December 2022 | www . machinerylubrication.com CONTAMINATION CONTROL & LUBRICANT RECONDITIONING Factor: C1P Learn More: noria.com/ascend/ Factor: C1P - Contaminant Exclusion Level: Platform (P) Stage: Contamination Control & Lubricant Reconditioning About: Contaminant Exclusion: Developing a contamination exclusion strategy can protect against machine failure and increase the life of both lubrication and machinery. More about this ASCEND ™ Factor Little Known Sources of Contamination Ingression Paul Farless | Noria Corporation You are probably familiar with a lot of the different ways contaminants can find their way into your machinery. For example, one of the most common ways that contam- inants enter your lubricant is through poor headspace management. Having an open vent or a factory vent plug on the machine doesn't really do much for contaminant prevention. Yes, those vent plugs allow the machinery to "breathe," but who knows what type of harmful particles that machine is actually sucking in. ose vent plugs and J tubes might as well just be a wide-open port. Another common ingression point that we are all aware of is water. Water contamination can happen through poor headspace management, blown seals, improper seals or by utilizing a lubricant that isn't compatible with the seal. Water ingression can come from condensation, rain or even the industrial process that the machine is involved in; these are issues we know about. What I want to focus on, though, is uncommon ingression sources. What sources allow contaminants that we don't think about or aren't so obvious? New Oil It starts with the reception of new lubricants. Each facility should implement and utilize a quality assurance/ quality control procedure for receiving new lubricants. Is it the correct oil? Cross-contamination is still contamina- tion; for example, if you mix two gear oils that are going into a worm gearbox, but one has EP additives, well, you can say bye-bye to the yellow metals in that gearbox. e next question you need to ask is, "How dirty or contaminated is the new oil coming in?" If you have ever taken Noria's Machinery Lubrication Level I training, you should know that new oil is NOT clean oil. We pound this into your head during training. So, as far as uncommon contaminant ingression sources, new oil is one that is often overlooked. It should become standard practice to sample new oil coming in and to clean it before putting that lubri- cant into service. I always advise "filter in and filter out," meaning to filter new oil coming into your storage tank and filter that same oil as it comes out of the storage tank More about this ASCEND ™ Factor