Improve Turbine Reliability

For turbines, unexpected downtime is not an option. The importance of this component makes reliability essential. Partnering with the right fluid analysis program, you can not only reduce downtime but also extend your turbine’s drain intervals.

Improve Your Equipment Reliability:

Turbine reliability is critical for any energy generating unit. The importance of the component to your business makes unexpected downtime unacceptable. Many plant managers move to scheduling turbine maintenance to ensure reliability.

Increase Your Savings:

There’s no way around it – turbine failure is always expensive. Planning your maintenance with a POLARIS Laboratories® program gives you the chance to extend drain intervals and perform maintenance before failures occur.

Extend the Life of Your Equipment:

The best way for you to analyze the health of your turbines is through fluid analysis. By monitoring turbine fluids, you can ensure lubrication meets the standards for the extreme working conditions of your components.

The key to improving the health of your turbines is by building a partnership with a strong fluid analysis laboratory capable of addressing common pain points. At POLARIS Laboratories®, we work every day to be that laboratory. We want to do more than provide you with a service. We want to provide you with the tools you need to succeed. Contact us at getstarted@polarislabs.com to start the partnership.

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

Published November 7, 2017

Need a little more uptime in your life?

Having a strong reactive maintenance program is great if you’re ok with constantly being one step behind your machines. No matter what– equipment will eventually break down, but it is possible to predict those breakdowns and plan maintenance around your own schedule. A healthy oil analysis program can help you easily address the maintenance challenges you experience every day.

To learn about the difference between an effective and an ineffective maintenance program, download this help sheet.

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

Published October 17, 2017

Ensure Your Compressors are Operational

While compressors may not be the most costly piece of equipment, they are critical to production. Building a strong partnership with a reputable fluid analysis laboratory is a good way of ensuring continued uptime.

Read this solution sheet to learn how you can protect your industrial components, improve equipment reliability, increase savings and extend equipment life.

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

Published October 3, 2017

The Underwater Test: Why You Should Test Your Equipment After a Flood

Sometimes it’s hard to plan for destructive natural disasters – such as Hurricane Harvey along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast and the subsequent flooding. So, what do you do if your equipment is exposed to the disaster’s effects and flooding?

Based on years of experience in helping companies save their equipment and extend the equipment’s lifecycle, quite simply we recommend taking action.

Flooding can result in water contamination and can cause corrosion and oxidation which can be extremely harmful for your equipment and, in turn, can cause holds in production and loss of business. How will you know if you need to test your equipment’s fluids to see if any damage was caused and determine if potential maintenance is needed?

First, check for signs of water ingression or leaking. Search for answers to key common challenges, such as:

  • Is the high-water mark above the containers?
  • Is dried mud crusted on the container?
  • Are caps, lids and vents still in place?
  • Are desiccant filters saturated?

After you check for signs of water ingression, the next steps for testing depend on the type of fluid:

Oils and Lubricants

Check the fluid itself for signs of water contamination. A milky appearance indicates the oil additives have emulsified as much water as they could, and there is likely more dissolved in the fluid. An oil analysis test from POLARIS Laboratories® includes a water test, and elemental analysis can identify dirt contamination from mud or salt from sea water.

Coolants

Pressure caps on coolant containers typically prevent floodwaters from entering cooling systems. However, it is still worth the time to perform a field test using a refractometer or paper test strip to determine if the glycol/water ratio is still in balance. If you suspect contamination, a coolant analysis test from POLARIS Laboratories® will determine if the external water and dirt requires the cooling system to be drained and/or flushed.

Bulk Tanks

Bulk tanks typically have water drain-off ports to remove free water that settles to the bottom of the tank, but the fluids should be checked for water as well as using the techniques above. A “thief bomb” or “bacon bomb” may be needed to collect the sample. Diesel fuel and new lubricant testing from POLARIS Laboratories® will determine if the fluid quality is adequate for future use.

It’s crucial for any contaminated oils, coolants or diesel fuel to go through analysis testing when flooding occurs. Testing can prevent future issues from arising and can help determine what equipment maintenance is needed to resume work.

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

Published September 6, 2017

Protect Your Gear Systems

There’s no avoiding dirt and water contamination in your gear systems. If you’re not careful, wear will occur and damage the overall health of your equipment. Partnering with a strong fluid analysis program, you can prevent undesired downtime and cut your costs.

To learn more about how routine fluid analysis can help protect your gear systems, check out this technical document or contact us directly at custserv@eoilreports.com.

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

Published August 8, 2017

What is particle count?

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Testing Your Oil Conditions

Contamination, component wear and fluid degradation make oil changes necessary. However, we have a choice when to change it.

Maintenance managers can set oil drains based on the equipment manufacturer’s recommendations, but that doesn’t necessarily account for unique environmental conditions. A heavy duty diesel engine on a piece of mobile equipment at a surface mine has different operational conditions than the same engine model in a standby power generation application. Oil analysis from POLARIS Laboratories® provides the scientific data to determine if a drain is necessary or if the drain interval can be extended.

But oil analysis by POLARIS Laboratories® covers more than just extending drains. Tests can determine abnormal component wear and fluid degradation. Here are a few of the oil conditions that are measured through our oil testing:

  1. Wear Metals: Components wear as they operate. This wear debris is abrasive and will beget additional component wear as the abrasive particles are circulated via the lubricant. The quantity and type of metal in the lubricant can identify how much wear is occurring and which part is wearing.
  2. Viscosity:  A measure of the lubricant’s resistance to flow at temperature. It is considered the most important property of a lubricant because it indicates film strength. Lubricants need to be within a certain viscosity range to provide adequate lubrication and prevent wear.
  3. Water Content: The amount of water contamination present. Water causes component corrosion and is a catalyst for oxidation.
  4. Soot: Particulate created as a by-product of incomplete combustion. Excessive soot levels will cause abrasive component wear.
  5. Fuel Dilution: Amount of unburned fuel in the lubricant. Excessive fuel dilution lowers the flash point and the viscosity, which results in friction-related wear.
  6. Acid Number: Used to measure the relative amount of acids in the lubricant, which can lead to lubricant degradation, and the potential for increased component wear.
  7. Base Number: A measure of a lubricant’s alkaline reserve, which can indicate the ability to neutralize acids.
  8. Oxidation: A way to measure the breakdown of the lubricant due to age and operating conditions. Oxidation promotes the formation of acids, which leads to lubricant degradation, and the potential for increased component wear.
  9. Nitration: Degradation that occurs when nitrogen oxides react with the lubricant primarily from ventilation (blow-by). Nitration leads to formation of sludge and varnish.

Of course, these are basic tests. Many different types of tests are available for special lubricant types or to gather more information on contamination found by another test.

Oil testing is even more helpful when the lubrication is used with other in-line fluids, such as coolant and diesel fuel. Engines use all three fluids, and a problem with one can affect another. Adding coolant analysis and diesel fuel analysis will uncover problems that would normally go undetected with oil analysis alone.

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

Published May 2, 2017

Compliance Yields Results

When equipment replacement costs hit an all-time high, a worldwide oil field service company turned to our team to revitalize their fluid analysis program. Coming from a low rate of compliance with a different fluid analysis firm, the company took a new approach to fluid analysis by adopting our web-based fluid analysis management system, HORIZON®.

Program Impact

Working together, our team designed an effective fluid analysis solution for the oil service company. We assembled a team of qualified experts in customer service, IT and field services to facilitate implementation. Site visits were made to each location, and the company’s employees received training on fluid sampling and use of the HORIZON system. Fluid analysis program champions were identified in the oil service company to provide onsite leadership and keep the program on track.

Results

Eighteen months after implementing its new fluid analysis program, the company’s compliance rate climbed from 40 to 70 percent. The company was able to make better maintenance decisions thanks to the qualified data and recommendations we provided. The oil service company now can plan for most outages, making operations more efficient and improving their bottom line.

To learn how POLARIS Laboratories® can help improve your team’s compliance rate, contact us at custserv@eoilreports.com.

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

Published April 4, 2017

Why Go Advanced?

With all the choices in oil analysis today, there can be much confusion about which testing is best for a maintenance program. Routine testing can be broken down into two main categories, basic and advanced testing. Basic testing can provide information about the condition of the equipment as it relates to wear and contamination. This can prevent small issues from turning into major failures (saving real dollars).

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What’s New: Particle Count

POLARIS Laboratories® has shaken up how we perform particle count testing at our U.S. location, and I’m excited about the improvements we’ve seen so far. In order to continue providing customers with top-notch oil analysis service, we switched from using the ISO 11500 test method to ASTM D7647 utilizing a solvent dilution test method.

There is nothing wrong with the equipment performing the ISO 11500 test methods, but we relied on pore blockage testing – an alternative particle count test – for dark samples or water-soluble fluids.

A few years ago, the manufacturer ceased supporting our pore blockage instruments. The effort to maintain the ageing equipment continued to rise, and POLARIS Laboratories® faced the choice of simply replacing the units or consolidating particle count and pore blockage testing into one instrument. We concluded the latter would be better for our internal processes at the same time it improved the service we provide customers.

By setting aside the good to accomplish the great, we knew we would face difficulties that always accompany change. First of all, it meant only the U.S.-based instruments would be replaced, leaving our labs in Edmonton, Guatemala City, and Poznan running ISO 11500 on the current units. While we now have plenty of spare parts for those units, we need to maintain two different test methods until we’re ready to switch over the rest of the locations.

It took about a year to validate the instrument’s capabilities, demonstrate the new method would match or outperform the current process, and organize the laboratories for the change. All of the preparation allows us to be confident we can switch to ASTM D7647 and provide a higher quality test results without a service interruption.

But changing test methods will benefit customers as well. The ISO 11500 test method results sometimes included water and soft, non-damaging particles (such as varnishes and long-chain additives) along with the hard particles that pose a danger to equipment longevity. The solvents we are using in ASTM D7647 allow the results to better represent the particle count of fluid under those conditions. Customers currently receiving pore blockage testing should see a mild shift in particle count results as a result of the new method.

To learn more about the different particle count test methods, the ISO cleanliness code, and how particle count tests results help you extend equipment life, explore our particle count technical bulletins or contact our data analysis team.

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

Published March 21, 2017