Credit: American Club
The American Club analyzes the importance of regularly performing lube oil analysis for shipboard machinery, and provides measures to prevent potential problems.
Why is lube oil testing important?
Oil analysis can help identify problems in the machinery such as abnormal wear, lube oil degradation, contamination of harmful agents, etc. all of which can lead to the potential failure of the machinery and its components.
Failures can lead to a loss of propulsion and/or blackouts that can cause consequential incidents such as groundings, collisions, or damage to third party property.
Periodic oil analysis can help maintain a proactive maintenance strategy, thus maintaining component life, mitigation of premature component failure and improved Mean Time Between Overhauls (MTBO).
The economic impact of breakdown prevention could result in considerable savings mitigating repair costs, downtime, loss of hire, wasting spares and the improving safety of operations.
The results of lube oil analyses are unique to every machinery system and can be compared against specified manufacturers’ standards and limits as specified by international standardization regimes.
Such analysis establishes whether certain key performance parameters are within operational ranges and so certify the oil’s fitness for use. In certain instances, further investigation involving some advanced analysis may be required to determine whether the lube oil meets recommended fitness for use.
Modern lubricating and hydraulic oils are designed to operate under specified conditions and durations (running hours). Deviating from recommended limitations may harm vital properties of the lube oil that can lead to poor performance and/or potential damage of the lubrication film thus paving the way for potential failure of the machinery.
What to look for in lube oil analysis
Lube oil samples are normally tested by specialized laboratories to determine the following characteristics:
Preventative measures
According to the American Club, it is recommended that each vessel and its managers have established procedures for sampling and analyzing lube oil samples, reviewing the results, monitoring the condition of machinery and implementing relevant and adequate planned maintenance.
There are some basic do’s and don’ts for lube oil sampling:
Do’s
Don’ts
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© 2021 SAFETY4SEA
© 2021 SAFETY4SEA