Maintenance professionals who have implemented Oil Analysis Programs (OAP) into their Preventative Maintenance Program understand, at some point, it's going to happen, we don't know when, or where, but one day our new oil is going to start to turn...dark.

Oil can be high maintenance. It’s not something you just dump in your system and forget about. You have to monitor it, manage it and oversee it. Just letting oil cycle through your system without routinely testing it is a sure ticket to equipment damage.

As an equipment owner or manager, the last thing that you want to find in your system is contamination. After all, that means downtime, which ultimately costs you time and money. Contamination always somehow sneaks its way into our systems, which may leave you asking, how does it get in there and what are we supposed to do about it?

The Problem: Oil with MPC Values of 250

A coal-fired power plant in the Philippines has a scheduled shutdown. Upon shutdown, it is revealed that the turbine lube oil, Shell Turbo 32, in the system has suddenly darkened. After conducting MPC and ISO code testing, it is determined that the oil’s current state is unusable with MPC values as high as 250 and ISO codes at 20/17/10.

Accessing a System that is Currently in Place

Preventative maintenance is a program put in place in most manufacturing or production industries to ensure quality scheduled maintenance is provided. Maintenance professionals implement these routine inspections before, during and after the operation of machinery. Parts of this routine can include areas that can only be inspected by touch, not sight, to determine what is happening under the surface. 

Oil analysis can be added to this routine maintenance to give a fuller picture of whats happening inside machinery and equipment. By including oil analysis in a preventative maintenance program, maintenance professionals are provided with detailed inside information that could prevent issues in the future, like unexpected downtime.