Grease is the most common type of lubricant used for rolling bearing lubrication today. About 90 percent of all bearings are lubricated in this manner. It is important to select the right grease for specific requirements and to calculate the lubricant life cycle. For accurate calculation of grease service life, it is necessary to know and apply limiting factors. The correct calculation will enable minimum quantity lubrication (MQL).
“Due to our limited human resources, we currently are sampling the oil in our turbine bearings on a yearly basis. Is this type of interval adequate for detecting failure modes or should the frequency be increased?”
Knowing when a piece of equipment is going to fail (predictive maintenance) is much more difficult than making it last long (proactive maintenance).
One major struggle maintenance groups seem to be dealing with today is a growing preventive maintenance (PM) backlog. Over time, some PMs fail to be closed, and work begins to pile up, resulting in large amounts of non-critical work being put on the back burner. Although the task of minimizing or eliminating backlogs can seem daunting at times, there are ways to address this problem while still taking a proactive mindset toward your equipment.
In a condition-based maintenance environment, the decision to change out a hydraulic pump or motor is usually based on remaining bearing life or deteriorating efficiency, whichever occurs first.
