To get something for nothing in this life is extremely rare. There is almost always some form of investment to gain a return. The investment can come in many forms, but the most popular are money, time and energy. Along with this investment, there is also some potential risk that must be weighed against the prospective gain.
The ASTM International committee on petroleum products, liquid fuels and lubricants (D02) recently created a new standard (to be released as D8185) that will serve as a guide for determining how to measure the viscosity of in-service oil.
“How can our maintenance personnel determine the root cause of foam when it appears in our oil sight glasses?”
Foam may seem harmless, but if unaccounted for, it can lead to serious issues in a machine. Foam finds its way into the oil volume’s headspace after the oil has initially become aerated. Small amounts of air in oil isn’t uncommon, particularly if the oil is expected to become agitated, such as in a gear system. However, as oil becomes more aerated, air bubbles will rise to the surface. Depending on the surface tension, these bubbles will either burst or stay intact in the form of foam.
Building a world-class lubrication program is a multistep process. A widely advocated, classic approach is to begin by benchmarking the current performance, followed by defining opportunities and designing and documenting the practices required to exploit the opportunities, and finally implementing the designed program.
Inspecting new oil deliveries should be an important part of any lubrication program. Many incidents have been reported of customers receiving either the wrong oil, contaminated or degraded oil. The best way to prevent this from happening is to be aware of what could go wrong and inspect and analyze new oil deliveries. The following is an example of an incident that occurred at the Alcoa Mill facility in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
