Practicing Oil Analysis September 2001

The Kern River facility recently upgraded three turbines, increasing the heat-load of turbines that are already battling against California weather. These conditions pushed the extreme limits of the turbine oil being used. They set out to change and flush the oil in order to create a safer, more efficient environment for the turbine oil.

Machinery maintenance programs based on lube oil condition-monitoring techniques offer rapid payback on investment by reducing equipment downtime and maintenance costs. Wear progression in...

Chemical microscopy, the combination of polarized light microscopy (PLM) with micro-scale techniques of qualitative analytical chemistry, is an extremely powerful and versatile tool for solving a...

Q & A’s offer quick answers to common or not-so-common questions. The following questions originated after reading “The Future of Filtration,” an article published in the July - August...

It was a beautiful autumn day in Florida when a filtering company paid a visit to one of its customers. They were there for a few days to assist in the installation of some standard filters. Once...

Oil analysts have trusted the blotter spot method to identify excessive engine soot, to evaluate the dispersancy performance of lubricants and to detect the presence of glycol and other...

Case Notebook Snuggled in the hills and plains of Wyoming, Schmid Oilfield Services set-up shop. Schmid is an aggressive oil field construction company operating more than 75 pieces of...

Required machine reliability is placing increasingly higher demands on maintenance budgets. The common answer to this is to implement condition monitoring in some form. Traditionally this...

Determining oil quality usually requires complex laboratory equipment to measure the viscosity, refractive index, density, base number (BN), acid number (AN), water content, metals (additives and...

A filter is clogged by a contaminant from a paper mill process; what is the contaminant and where did it come from? A sample of grease has an unusual odor; can you tell what is causing...

You have been seeing a movement in industry toward skill standards and now understand the importance of being certified in your profession. You are aware that certification can give you...

This case study describes the long-term impact of fluid cleanliness on the transmission gearboxes of large power generation wind turbines in Northern California.