It’s essential that maintenance teams focus on failure modes to match the most suitable tool to the most likely problems. Vibration analysis helps diagnose the most common faults that rotating machines are susceptible to: imbalance, looseness, misalignment, and wear. The compatible trio of owning the right tools, knowing what to test, and sustaining a functional vibration testing program can potentially reduce repair costs and limit unproductive maintenance hours.

When Benjamin Franklin wrote, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” he was referring to fire safety. But, as you may know from experience, this saying holds true with regard to preventive maintenance (PM). Simply stated, preventive maintenance is an activity performed at a set interval to maintain an asset, regardless of its current condition. It’s a properly planned activity, where materials and parts are on hand and labor is scheduled ahead of time.

The primary physical characteristics of lubricants that are affected by temperature include viscosity, viscosity index, pour point and the base oil. Let’s deal with these individually.

The need for health monitoring in industrial machines using vibration analysis for diagnosis is an ever growing requirement in all types of industries and equipment. Vibrations in machinery can take various forms, and most of the time these vibrations are unintended and undesirable. Therefore, monitoring the vibration characteristics of a machine can provide the information of its health condition, and this piece of information can be used to detect problems that might be incipient or developing.

Drone-based nondestructive testing allows easier, faster and inexpensive identification of flaws and defects on materials. Using location and other controls, the drones can take the same tests from the same point and angle repeatedly. Drone-based inspection and maintenance provides a wide range of possibilities that take advantage of the mobility of the drone, as well as the nondestructive nature of the tests. These tests can help oil and gas companies identify defects and reduce the rate of failures and unplanned shutdowns. The delicate nature of the oil and gas industry requires close and careful monitoring of its systems, such as pipelines, refineries and more.

I decided to write on this topic because I continually hear people say that oil doesn’t go bad, it just gets dirty. This implies that if you keep the oil clean, it will last forever. This is not true. I am frequently dismayed to see how many people simply don’t change the oil in certain machines. In general, all in-service lubricants will fail at some point.

“I have heard many different opinions as to whether funnels should be used for topping off an oil reservoir. Can you explain why funnels should or should not be used?” Across industry, it seems that if you are filling a machine or topping it off with oil, you will need to transfer the lubricant from a large container through a small fill port at the top of the machine. A funnel is designed to make this opening wider for adding oil. While funnels can make this task easier, they are not recommended because of their potential to introduce contaminants into the lubricant.

Vibration in industrial equipment can be both a sign and a source of trouble. Other times, vibration just “goes with the territory” as a normal part of machine operation, and should not cause undue concern. But how can the plant maintenance professional tell the difference between acceptable, normal vibration and the kind of vibration that requires immediate attention to service or replace troubled equipment?