Simmons Feed Ingredients (SFI) is a family-owned and operated company that produces high-quality animal nutrition for pet food, aquaculture and livestock. In the 67 years since the construction of its first ingredient facility, SFI has continued to acquire additional operations and currently operates plants from Southwest City, Missouri, to Quakertown, Pennsylvania.
Additives are selected based on their ability to perform certain roles alongside a base oil in an application. By nature, additives either enhance new properties, suppress undesirable properties or impart completely new properties to the base oil. Additive packages typically make up to 30 percent of the formulated oil volume depending on the application.
Automatic lubrication systems are generally considered very reliable. But, how reliable are they really? This question should be of interest to those people working with or intending to install an automatic lubrication system.
I received a phone call from a paper mill. Maintenance staff of that mill were interested in trying to save a gearbox running at 170°C and operate in survival mode until the next scheduled maintenance period. Conditions of the gearbox are shown in Figure 1.
The phenomenon of cavitation consists in the disruption of continuity in the liquid where there is considerable local reduction of pressure. The formation of bubbles within liquids (cavitation) begins even in the presence of positive pressures that are equal to or close to the pressure of saturated vapor of the fluid at the given temperature.
