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| A Hard Lesson Learned About Gearbox Failure
Martin Williamson, Noria UK Limited |
| Like so many attendees in a Noria training class, Bill was no exception. When asked why he was there, he replied, ‘To learn a little more about oil analysis, so I can get the full value from my oil analysis program.’ |
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| An Integrated Approach to Lubrication Excellence at BHP Steel
Jian G. Ding, BHP Research & Technology Development |
| Lubricated equipment at BHP Steel is massive in quantity and critical to production. It covers millions of bearings, gearboxes, heavy-duty diesel engines, and hydraulic systems throughout hundreds of BHP plants worldwide. |
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| Applying Onsite Oil Analysis at the Westinghouse Savannah River Company
J. Mike Weiksner, Westinghouse Savannah River Company |
| Through a pilot maintenance optimization program in a powerhouse plant, the company identified that an oil analysis program would eliminate time-directed oil changes. One department purchased oil analysis screening equipment and obtained a volunteer maintenance mechanic to support the budding oil analysis program. |
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| Change Can Make a Difference
Ken Huckeba, Mission Operations and Maintenance Inc. |
| The Kern River Cogeneration Company Omar Generation Facility has been supplying steam for enhanced oil recovery in the Texaco Oil Field north of Bakersfield, California for the last 15 years. Summertime temperatures in this part of the state frequently exceed 100°F (38°C). |
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| Contamination Affects Constant-level Oilers
Karl Rykert, Pro-seal Service Group |
| Pro-Seal Service Group, a distributor for Royal Purple synthetic lubricants, encounters numerous lubrication-related failures and is thereby challenged to improve reliability on all machinery. |
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| Contamination Control Program Substantially Decreases Mine's Mobile Equipment Costs
Sharon Dory, J.R. Simplot Co. and Teresa Hansen, Noria Corporation |
| Like all industries, the mining industry is under increasing pressure to do more with less. Faced with falling profits, J.R. Simplot Co.’s Smoky Canyon Phosphate Mine near Jackson Hole, Wyo., set out to reduce maintenance costs. Like most open pit mines, the mobile equipment was identified as one of the mine’s largest cost centers. |
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| Cook Nuclear Develops Successful Onsite Oil Analysis Program
Steve Mitchell, Cook Nuclear Generating Station, American Electric Power |
| Oil analysis is a key element to equipment and component reliability at any nuclear power generation facility. In particular, having onsite oil analysis can significantly reduce the total turnaround time between sampling and condition-based maintenance recommendations that are required to keep equipment operating safely and efficiently. Cook Nuclear developed a successful onsite oil analysis program that helped improve equipment reliability and availability while reducing maintenance costs. The power plant found that by using its existing onsite chemistry staff and laboratory to perform onsite oil analysis it was able to save both time and money. |
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| Developing a Motor Bearing Regreasing Strategy
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| Question
You have just been hired as a maintenance engineer for a large manufacturing plant. The plant has a history of never greasing electric motor bearings, believing that this practice does more harm than good. The plant has a mix of motors, some of which have been in service for 10 years, others just a few months. Depending on motor manufacturer, speed and horsepower, there is everything from sealed and shielded bearings to open bearings. How would you go about developing a regreasing strategy for these motors?
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| Digging Up a Solution to Fluid Contamination Control
Aaron Hoeg, Hy-Pro Filtration |
| Mobile mining equipment hydraulic systems are typically exposed to very high solid particle ingression rates. A mine was experiencing premature component failure on its excavator due to high particle contamination. In the first 27 months of operation, costs included four variable speed piston pump replacements ($20,000 per exchange, $34,000 new), three swing motor replacements, two drive motor replacements, numerous servovalve repairs or replacements, 42 hydraulic hose-related problems, and 16 instances of contamination sensors requiring cleaning. The oil was highly contaminated, yielding excess oxidation after 2,255 service hours and needed to be replaced. Other associated costs included excessive unplanned equipment downtime, more than 39 hours, and unplanned maintenance costs. |
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| Dirty Totes
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| When setting up and implementing the proactive oil analysis program at Deeter Foundry, I realized the importance of ensuring the procurement and maintenance of clean oil. Obtaining clean oil from a distributor, however, proved to be more difficult than I expected. |
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| Effective Fluid Management Delivers Big Time at the Port of Tacoma
Jim Harris, Port of Tacoma and Nick Nesland, Sr., Hydraulic Repair and Design |
| With an eye on improving the operational profitability of each piece by extending the life of the equipment and reducing maintenance costs, the Port of Tacoma undertook an aggressive program of fluid condition management. |
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| El Paso Electric Samples Cooling Tower Gearboxes
Jaime Viramontes and Lesley A. Harrignton, El Paso Electric |
| One of the first tasks when setting up an oil analysis program is selecting the appropriate sample location for each critical component. |
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| Electrostatic Filter Helps Control Sludge and Varnish
David M. Bickford, ASL Technologies LLC |
| With hydraulic fluid ISO cleanliness levels of 14/10/7 to 15/12/10 on a main slab press, it is hard to imagine that it would be necessary to dump and replace fluid this clean. However, that is the position Millar Western Forest Products Ltd., a large Canadian forest company, found itself in at its chemi-thermo-mechanical pulp (CTMP) mill in Whitecourt, Alberta, Canada. |
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| Enterprise Products Improves Reliability With Lubricant Upgrades
Francisco J. Gonzalez, Enterprise Products |
| Enterprise Products Partners L.P. is one of the largest publicly traded energy partnerships with an enterprise value of more than $14 billion, and a leading North American provider of midstream energy services to producers and consumers of natural gas, natural gas liquids (NGLs) and crude oil. Enterprise transports natural gas, NGLs and crude oil through 32,500 miles of onshore and offshore pipelines and is an industry leader in the development of midstream infrastructure in the deepwater trend of the Gulf of Mexico. Just eight years ago, Enterprise Products operated 200,000 brake horsepower of equipment, most of which was at its Mont Belvieu facility in Texas. Today, Enterprise Products operates equipment totaling in excess of 1.6 million brake HP. |
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| Failure of Cooling Fan Shaft Bearings
Stephen Shakeshaft, Stephen Shakeshaft Consulting |
| A facility manufacturing intermediate chemical compounds for plastics manufacture has a large number of air-cooled systems with numerous fans driven by electric motor and speed-reducing pulleys. Over the years it experienced many premature bearing failures on the fan shafts. |
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| Field Facts
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| In this new feature, we focus on stories where the application of basic oil analysis leads to a long-term solution to a fundamental lubrication related problem. The first of these, supplied by Bill Herguth of Herguth Laboratories Inc., concerns the long-term impact of fluid cleanliness on the transmission gearboxes of large power generation windmills in Northern California. |
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| Gearbox Mishaps are Valuable Lessons
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| While working as a lube salesman in the Toronto area, I was called to visit a customer who had experienced a lube-related problem. Over the weekend, a welder had been working on a large gearbox that was drained of our oil – a conventional EP gear oil. |
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| Goodbye Oiler, Hello Skilled Lube Tech and Lube Analyst
Drew Troyer and Mark Barnes |
| A world-class lubrication and lubricant analysis program requires individuals with world-class skills. While it is true to say that those directly responsible for lubrication must be properly trained, other individuals in the organization also require knowledge, or at least awareness of the program’s goals, primary benefits and fundamental tenets. |
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| Innovative Sampling Method Creates Strange Results
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| A large municipal bus fleet engineering manager was perplexed. With six different bus depots, each operating buses with engines of the same model and age under similar service conditions, using the same oil and fuel supplier, why was only one of the depots routinely showing elevated soot levels from more than 90 percent of the engine oil samples? |
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| Longer Lasting Lubricants for The Aluminum Industry
E. Akochi-Koble Ph.D., J. Pinchuk, D. Pinchuk, G. Arseneault of Thermal-Lube Inc. and R. Gagne of Alcan Smelters and Chemicals Ltd. |
| This project, like so many others, had a humble beginning. About five years ago, after returning from a routine sales call to the smelter where a representative was selling synthetic and specialty greases, he challenged the authors to develop a series of lubricants that he could sell to the aluminum industry. In a discussion with a group of maintenance people at the smelter, he was told that if his company could develop lubricants that would last longer and protect equipment better than the current product, they would buy from him. |
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| Lubrication Reliability Program Yields Big Savings
David Bandt, EVTAC Mining Co. |
| Today’s global economy is here to stay. Manufacturers from automobiles to toothpicks are under continuous pressure to reduce costs. In order to survive in this environment, a company must either adapt, embrace and master newly emerging technologies or be swallowed by those that do. EVTAC Mining is one of many companies currently striving to make such changes. |
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| Magnetic Plug Inspection Enhances Condition-Based Maintenance
Sharon H. Dory, J.R. Simplot Co. and Teresa Hansen, Noria Corporation |
| In early 2001, the average rebuild cost for J.R. Simplot Co.’s Caterpillar 785 haul truck differentials and final drives was $2.11 per hour of operation. By 2003, the average cost had dropped to $1.36 per hour of operation and the mine’s maintenance personnel set a goal of further reducing the cost to $1.17. At the same time, the mine’s reliability team successfully extended the average oil drain intervals on the differentials and final drives from 2,000 hours to 6,000 hours and set a goal of 10,000 hours. |
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| Major Reliability and Lubricant Consumption Savings at Tutuka Power Station
A.E. Cattaert, Eskom - Tutuka Power Station |
| Tutuka Power Station was put into full commercial operation in June 1990. Tutuka - a Zulu word meaning progress - is a 3,600 MW thermal power station located in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa. Each of Tutuka’s six turbine-generators runs separately with its own fuel and water supply, output transformer and instrumentation. |
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| Oil Analysis Success at a Power Generation Station
Bryan Johnson, Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station |
| The PdM team of Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station has a recipe for oil analysis success. Over the past several years they have documented several "saves" that could have potentially costed over $200,000. |
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| Onsite Portable Filtration - Texas Style
Robert Perez, Flint Hills Resources and Duke Cooper, Oil Filtration Systems |
| For many industries, production downtime and scheduled outages are few-and-far between. While logic and best practice may suggest a need for system redesign, a filtration upgrade or a complete flush, the pressure from production to continue operations until the next scheduled shutdown usually wins out - and rightly so. |
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| Practical Solutions to Lubrication Failures
John Gobert, the Hurt Company |
| In 2000, Premcor Refining (now Valero) began seeking ways to reduce machinery and equipment failures, which resulted in a lubrication reliability department dedicated to the development of programs for identifying poorly functioning equipment and determining the root causes of substandard equipment performance. |
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| Quality Lubrication Renders Engine Teardown Spotless
Dennis Hammons, Conocophillips Lubricants |
| The benefits of proper equipment maintenance and use of a high-quality heavy-duty diesel engine oil are evident at Miles Sand and Gravel, a sand and gravel supplier in Auburn, Washington. The company's 18 quarries span across the state, meeting the construction industry's daily sand, gravel and concrete needs. |
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| River Bend Station Serves Up Savings
Gary D. Lipham, River Bend Station - Energy Corporation |
| Saving the company money is a celebratory event, especially when a group of dedicated team players serves management the savings. |
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| Roller Bearing Lubrication Failures Solved
Stephen Shakeshaft, Shakeshaft Consulting |
| Aglobal chemical manufacturing company is operating a plant with a large rotary kiln. The kiln is part of a single-stream process, so any downtime at the kiln plant has immediate and severe effects on several downstream manufacturing units. The resulting lost production has serious cash loss implications as the plant is operating on a sold-out basis; therefore, reliability is of paramount importance. The strongly acidic and toxic product gases are drawn from the kiln at high temperature (approximately 400°C) by an induced draft fan. This fan is known as "the hot gas fan" for obvious reasons. Historically, the fan and the kiln had been remarkably reliable, requiring only routine maintenance between annual maintenance shutdowns. |
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| Solving a High-temperature Problem
Stephen Glad, Structured Information |
| Performance Roof Systems in Kansas City, Mo., experienced continual problems with bearings in a heated auger machine used in the production of industrial roll roofing. Temperatures of approximately 500°F caused lubricants for the ball bearings to quickly evaporate. From that point, failure was only a matter of time. Tired of shutting down the machine to change bearings, maintenance supervisor Clayton Stiverson searched for alternatives and finally found a bearing material based on a self-lubricating graphite/metal alloy that provides a low coefficient of friction without any lubricant. |
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| Sunoco's Contamination Counter-Attack
Charles Pitt, Sunoco Chemicals and Lana Robin, PdMA Corporation |
| The effort to minimize the risk of contamination during lubricant handling and dispensing has been a recent priority at Sunoco Chemicals. |
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| Switching Lubricant Suppliers - Controlling the Risks
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| Question: You are no longer able to buy lubricants from your previous supplier (Supplier A), so your company has switched to a new lubricant supplier (Supplier B). All of your machines currently use lubricants from Supplier A. Some of these machines require small volumes of oil (gears, bearings, etc.) that need occasional top-ups and annual oil changes. Other machines are large circulating oil systems for which oil is changed “on condition,” based on oil analysis. Many motor and fan bearings are grease-lubricated. |
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| The Greatest Racecar Driver of All Time, Mario Andretti, Speaks With Noria
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| It is no wonder that Mario Andretti is considered by many to be the greatest racecar driver of all time. His career touched five decades, longer than any driver, and he has won championships at all levels of competition. His list of racing accomplishments seems almost endless. It includes four time Champ Car National Champion (1965, 1966, 1969, 1984); the only person to have won the Daytona 500 (1967), the Indianapolis 500 (1969) and the Grand Prix world driving championship (1978); the only driver to win Champ Car races in four decades; and the only driver to ever win races in five decades. |
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| The Missing Link in Reliability Lubrication Maintenance
Jan Peens, SAPPI |
| During the early 1990s, an abundance of literature on lubrication was available, but the content of this literature did not provide a practical guide to setting up a lubrication plan or how to align all departments according to such a plan. Therefore, a simplified lubrication framework, which takes a holistic approach to lubrication, was devised to set up a cost-effective lubrication control system. |
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| Tums, Tums, Tums, Tums?
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| It was a beautiful autumn day in Florida when a filtering company paid a visit to one of its customers. |
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| Understanding Machine Metallurgy Helps Identify Problem
Mark Barnes, Noria Corporation and David Doyle, CTC Analytical |
| Elemental analysis is a fundamental tool in used oil analysis. Used appropriately, trends in different wear metals can indicate a problem, allowing corrective action to be taken before catastrophic failures occur. However, the effectiveness of elemental analysis in pinpointing a problem and isolating it to one specific component or group of components can be greatly enhanced by taking some time in advance of the lab reporting “active machine wear” to identify the specific metallurgical composition of all oil-wetted components. |
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| Valve Stiction Problem Cured by Soft Particle Removal
Mark Beesley, Fortum O & M (UK) LTD |
| Westferry Printers in London prints The Daily Express, The Telegraph, The Observer, The Star and The Financial Times, among others. Westferry is Europe’s largest newspaper printing facility, producing 18 to 20 million newspapers and supplements each week. For some time, Westferry faced a hydraulic problem that set off a failure chain reaction. It started with a short pressure loss in the power pack after start up. This pressure loss tripped a safety device and brought the printing process to a halt ultimately costing the company thousands of dollars in lost production. To keep the presses running until a permanent solution was found, a three-second delay was programmed into the machine’s computer to allow the operating pressure to be restored before the interlock cut in. |
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| World's Largest Brewer Optimizes Lubrication
Joanne Ferguson, Rocol Lubricants |
| InBev, the world's largest brewing company, is benefiting from optimized food-grade lubrication and a noticeable reduction in machinery breakdowns from poor lubrication at its Wellpark Brewery in Glasgow, Scotland after contracting Rocol on-site service engineers to manage this crucial maintenance role. |
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