Testing Laboratories

Machine condition monitoring by oil analysis is widely practiced by modern industry in virtually every segment that has large, expensive oil-lubricated machines and engines to maintain. In many cases, and especially when a plant or enterprise is not large, samples are sent to commercial oil analysis laboratories. Large companies often chose to use commercial labs so that they do not have to make the necessary investment in instruments and personnel. On the other hand, many companies chose to have their own oil labs to provide faster turn-around time, as well as to have personnel doing the diagnostics who are intimately familiar with the equipment under surveillance. Companies that are remotely located and that suffer poor logistics for getting samples to a commercial laboratory are more likely to establish their own oil analysis capability.

Commercial oil laboratories almost always provide the following:

• Testing for elemental content to determine wear metals, contaminants and additives
• FT-IR analysis to determine lubricant degradation and second phase fluid contamination (i.e., water, fuel glycol)
• Viscosity testing
• Particle counting to determine contaminant and wear particle levels
• Ferrographic analysis if routine tests show problems or for extremely critical components

Additionally, commercial oil laboratories sometimes offer:

• TAN, Total Acid Number, a chemical titration, to measure oil acidity
• TBN, Total Base Number, a chemical titration, to measure remaining neutralizing ability of the oil
• KF, Karl Fischer water, an electrochemical cell procedure that quantifies water to ppm levels
• GC, gas chromatography, to precisely measure fuel in oil.
• RULER, Remaining Useful Life, a measure of an oil’s ability to resist oxidation
• RBOT, Rotating Bomb Oxidation Test, another way to measure oil’s ability to resist oxidation

Applicable Spectro Products

• Spectroil M, Oil and Fuel Analysis Spectrometer
• LaserNet Fines, Particle Counter and particle Shape Classifier
• Spectro FTIR, oil Analyzer
• Spectro-Visc, Automatic Viscometer
• Fuel Sniffer, Fuel Dilution Meter
• Ferrography Laboratory

Application Notes

• LaserNet Fines, A New Tool for the Oil Analysis Toolbox
• Machine & Lubricant Condition Monitoring for Extended Equipment Lifetimes & Predictive Maintenance at Power Plants
• Development of an ASTM Standard Test Method for the RDE Emission Spectroscopy Technique
• Analytical Tools to Detect and Quantify Large Wear Particles in Used Lubricating Oil

Selected Spectro Customers

• Analysts Incorporated
• CTC Analytical Services
• Indian Oil Corporation
• KTM Lab Services
• Lab One
• Metalux Lubrication Maintenance Specialists
• Predict/DLI