In the interest of reducing purchasing costs and streamlining storage and handling, many organizations have substantially slashed the number of lubricant SKUs (stock keeping units) they use. They have also re-engineered the precision of their lubricant specification. There are many real and a couple of somewhat imaginary benefits to these consolidation initiatives. Let’s start with the real benefits.
To commemorate its 100th issue, Machinery Lubrication presents 100 things you should know to develop a world-class lubrication program. Whether you are in the initial stages of implementing a new program or already have a well-established program in place, you should find numerous ideas that can help, with advice from each of the 100 issues.
When you turn on the television and surf the guide, you’ll often see shows like “Top 10 Beaches in the World,” “Top 20 Worst Celebrity Bodies” or “Top 100 Hits of the ’80s.” So to stay current with the times, this article will cover the top five most common hydraulic mistakes plants make over and over again. This falls into the definition of insanity with which we’re all familiar – doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Here are the top five:
If you’re running one of the approximately 140 working refineries in the United States, the last thing you need is an unplanned shutdown. But a production standstill is exactly what is at risk if you don’t keep an eye on the viscosity of the lubricating oil used in any of the rotary compressors in the plant, with the highest risk of these being the gas compressors. One minute all processes are up and running, and the next there’s a bearing failure and production stops.
It wasn’t until the beginning of the industrial revolution when a British mechanic named Joseph Bramah applied the principle of Pascal’s law in the development of the first hydraulic press. In 1795, he patented his hydraulic press, known as the Bramah press. Bramah figured that if a small force on a small area would create a proportionally larger force on a larger area, the only limit to the force that a machine can exert is the area to which the pressure is applied.
