Oil Testing | POLARIS Laboratories®

Contamination: The troublemaker of oil analysis

Contamination in your fluid can be troublesome. Contaminants are all around us—in the air, water, particulates and, for maintenance personnel, in cleanup and process chemicals. As these elements contaminate your fluid, they can potentially shorten the life of your machinery.

In a study conducted by Oklahoma State University, researchers found that when a fluid is maintained 10 times cleaner, hydraulic pump life can extend by as much as 50 years! So how do we protect our lubricants from these unwanted contaminants?

The first step is understanding the symptoms that arise from different methods of contamination. The following are four common diagnoses as well as symptoms of these contaminants.

Symptoms: Spongy operation of hydraulics as air compresses under pressure; excessive wear; premature oxidation (especially in high pressure systems); pump cavitation and vibration; an increasing layer of foam.
Diagnosis: Air contamination

Symptoms: Premature failure or excessive wear due to reduced lubricating ability; corrosion of bearings or other machine elements; premature filter plugging; premature oxidation of lubricants.
Diagnosis: Water contamination

Symptoms: Increased wear
Diagnosis: Particulate contamination

Symptoms: Unexplained contamination
Diagnosis: Cleanup and process chemical issues

Performing oil analysis can help you identify exactly what type of contamination your machine is experiencing. From there, you can begin to decipher what could be causing it and how to change your maintenance practices to avoid high levels of contamination in the future.

In a recent blog post, I discussed how to best store your lubricants to avoid contamination. You can find the article here.

If you are interested in learning more about how you can improve your oil analysis program, check out our training page to learn more about our training programs.

Proven Impact. Proven Uptime. Proven Savings.
Let us prove it to you.

Extending Component and Equipment Life

In the same way early detection is used in human health to spot damage to the body, early detection is an important part of maintaining equipment health. Embracing predictive maintenance technology is an essential part of maintaining healthy equipment, lowering the time spent performing maintenance and reducing costs.

Utilizing the reliability model and concepts associated with this method helps maintenance teams extend their component and equipment lifecycles. A leading pharmaceutical company utilizes the predictive maintenance methodology and the four major predictive technologies to improve the reliability of their maintenance program. Using the method, the team tests compressors, hydraulic systems, bearings, gears and other components

Read the Full Case Study

Unexpected maintenance slowing you down?

Unexpected maintenance seems to always happen at the worst possible time. Whether you have a tight deadline to make or a limited budget, performing unexpected maintenance is never fun. At POLARIS Laboratories® we like to encourage our customers to make the switch from ‘reactive’ maintenance to ‘preventive’ maintenance in order to prepare for these unwanted surprises.

Relying on reactive maintenance does little to save you money or time. While responding in real time may seem like the easiest route, it too often results in extended downtime and unforeseen (not to mention expensive) maintenance costs.

Many of the issues causing downtime can silently build up in your machine over an extended period of time. Instead of waiting for the worst to happen, you can utilize the information obtained through oil analysis to spot an abnormality in your machine or vehicle. This allows you to plan a machine’s upkeep and maintenance schedule on your own terms.

While making the switch may seem difficult, this change is actually easy to implement and has the capacity to completely transform your maintenance system. You would be surprised at the impact focusing on preventive maintenance can have on both your program’s reliability and the mindset of your maintenance team.

Preventive maintenance allows you to take control of your maintenance practices, saving you time and money. If you’re interested in learning more about how you can improve your maintenance program, check out this case study or contact us today!

Proven Impact. Proven Uptime. Proven Savings.
Let us prove it to you.

Storing Your Lubricants to Avoid Contamination

Are you seeing unexpected contaminants in your lubricant analysis report? How you store and handle your lubricants has a significant impact on levels of contamination.

This quick guide can help you ensure that your lubricant is properly stored — saving time, money and a headache.

The basics:

Pumps, drums and totes need to be stored in a dry environment
Avoid storing lubricants in a humid environment (lubricants are hygroscopic)
Attempt to store lubricants indoors away from contamination under fairly constant moderate temperature conditions
Lubricants exposed to temperature extremes can lose additive effectiveness
Varying temperatures can cause breathing in sealed containers resulting in contaminant ingress

Indoor Storage:

When storing your fluid inside, follow the guidelines outlined in the image below to avoid contaminants.

Outdoor Storage:

Storing drums outside should be avoided but, if outside storage is the only option, consider these methods to avoid contamination:

Shelter drums from the rain and snow
Lay drums on their sides with buns in 3 and 9-o-clock position below lubricant level
Cover drums with shelter or tarp
Store drums upright, but tilt to keep water from bung
Use drum covers
Store small containers in a sealed cabinet

Best Storage

Adequate Storage

Least Desirable Storage

Integrating these simple practices into your maintenance program can help you improve the overall quality of your fluid. Ensuring that outside contaminants such as water, air and abrasives stay far away from your lubricants is a fundamental best practice for strong oil analysis programs.

If you’re interested in learning more about implementing a successful oil analysis program, visit our training page or contact us for more information.

Proven Impact. Proven Uptime. Proven Savings.
Let us prove it to you.

Changing Ourselves to Drive Customer Success

POLARIS Laboratories® embraces change because it is the only way to continuously improve the value of our oil analysis. Some changes are driven by feedback from employees, but often it’s the voice of the customer that drives us to become better.

Each month we send surveys to customers to discover what we are doing well and what needs improvement. Recently, survey comments requested more information in our results comments to help maintenance programs diagnose what is causing abnormal conditions in their equipment.

We took a closer look at our report comments. Wear and contamination comments contained quite a bit of information on potential causes and how to correct the problem, but fluid property comments lacked some of these details.

Our customers pointed out a valid area to improve, so improve it we did. Comments on viscosity, acid number, base number, pH, oxidation and nitration now include more details and possible root causes.

Our ultimate goal is for customers to be confident they are making the right maintenance decisions based on their analysis results. Expanding the report comments is one way we’re helping customers save their equipment.

Log into HORIZON and open a recent report to see the expanded comments for yourself.

Proven Impact. Proven Uptime. Proven Savings.
Let us prove it to you.

Do you value your equipment?

For Dennis Mungle, it’s all about the customer. As a manager of lubricants for more than 20 years, he needs to know that he can rely on accurate, timely results that can help customers save time and money. Listen to the benefit his partnership with POLARIS Laboratories has had on his customers. That’s what we call Proven Savings.

Is your maintenance program increasing equipment uptime?

Rendela Wenzel has been a customer of POLARIS Laboratories for more than 15 years. For her, the value of this partnership goes beyond the products. Listen to her explain the important of diagnosing problems and receiving information quickly. That’s what we call Proven Uptime.

How can championing compliance drive action?

Scott Arrington has been a long-time customer of POLARIS Laboratories. By parterning with us, Scott recieves the insight he needs to help his customers understand and take action on oil analysis. Listen to how this partnership allows Scott to provide additional benefits to his customers. That’s what we call Proven Impact.

What drives POLARIS Laboratories each and every day?

Everything we do at POLARIS Laboratories is rooted in helping people save time and money. Together, we look for proven strategies to get the most out of your equipment. Our people breathe life into our mission every day and are truly dedicated to your success.

Q&A with Keynote Speaker David Cripps

The 2015 POLARIS Laboratories Customer Summit has an amazing lineup of speakers to demonstrate how oil analysis helps drive
action inside their maintenance programs.

Likewise, keynote speaker David Cripps, chief engineer for HERTA Racing, will bring a unique perspective to the summit. POLARIS Laboratories® sat down with Mr. Cripps for a preview of what’s in store for Customer Summit attendees.

POLARIS Laboratories: At what moment did you realize the money- and equipment-saving potential of oil analysis?

David Cripps: In racing, the key performance area we’re concerned with is drag, and there’s a tremendous amount of drag within the mechanical components. Lots of R&D goes into finding bearings and coatings that minimize the drag. Mostly, it’s accomplished by lowering lubricant viscosity as much as possible without lowering the life of the equipment. Oil analysis is an important piece of the process – especially when evaluating the wear on the equipment.

PL: What is the one piece of advice you wish every oil analysis user would follow?

DC: Data is king. It’s extremely important. People will acquire loads of data thinking they’ve done their job. But data processing is what’s important. You need a data reduction process – to collate it. You need to paint longer-term pictures, to refine the data.

PL: What’s the best oil analysis “save” you have experienced?

DC: That’s actually a story I’m going to talk about during the Customer Summit. I don’t want to give too much away, but I’ll give you a quick preview: Assume nothing.

PL: How did you end up coming to Indianapolis, and what do you think of the city?

DC: [Former IndyCar driver] Dick Simon personally invited me to work for him in Indy. He was a great guy and he had a growing racing team. That’s when I began laying down roots in the city. 20 years later, Indianapolis has changed a lot. It’s an impressive, well-run city. The downtown went through a huge renovation, and now it’s a clean, attractive place people want to hold events at, like this summit. The city is more than just racing – there’s a good cross-section of business with a little bit of everything.

Hear more from David Cripps during the 2015 POLARIS Laboratories Customer Summit. Register for the summit before July 16 and save $200.

Proven Impact. Proven Uptime. Proven Savings.
Let us prove it to you.

Published July 6, 2015