Advanced Maintenance Techniques: Oil Analysis, Vibration Analysis, Thermography, TPM, RCM, and ISO 55000

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ADVANCED MAINTENANCE
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a) Oil analysis
Oil analysis is a laboratory analysis of properties of lubricants, wear debris and suspended
contaminants. Oil analysis is carried out during regular predictive maintenance to give
accurate and meaningful information on machine and lubricant condition, by following the
analysis sample over life of a given machine, a trend can be established which can assist in
eliminating costly repairs. Tribology is the study of wear and tear in machinery. Tribologists
regularly interpret or perform oil analysis data.
Oil analysis can be grouped into three groups:
i. Analysis of the properties of oil which include additives and those of the base oil.
ii. Analysis of contaminants
iii. Machine wear debris analysis
From the results of oil analysis one can be able to tell how the equipment was used and the
condition which it is in. Oil which has been in any mechanical equipment which is moving
for a period of time reflects the exact condition of that given mechanical equipment. In the
motion process the moving parts comes into contact which each other resulting to wear and
tear and introduces very tiny metal particles to the oil. Most of this metal particles remain
suspended in oil due to their small size. Many combustion process products gets trapped in
the circulating oil. As well as the oil might be exposed to the sources of contamination.
Measuring and identifying these impurities clearly indicates the level of contamination of oil
and the rate of wear of the moving parts (Davies, 2012, p. 87). Therefore the oil is used as the
working history of the mechanical equipment. Oil analysis also proposes techniques which
can be adopted to reduce contamination and accelerated wear. An oil can be able to show the
presence of contaminants as well as if the appropriate lubricant was used. Oil analysis detects
the following:

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i. Lubricant misapplication
ii. Oil contamination
iii. Bearing excessive wear
The major merit of oil analysis is that is able to anticipate problems and schedule repair
works. The early detection of problems can
 Reduce repair costs.
 Prevent catastrophic failures
 Increases the lifespan of the machine
 Minimise non-scheduled downtimes.
There are various reasons to use oil analysis in the testing of the engines and they include, to
determine optimum oil drain intervals. To find out if there are changes to the normal
operations of the machines. To determine the interval in which the machines will require
maintenance (Mannan, 2016, p. 316).
Oil analysis tests include:
 Particle analysing
 Viscosity
 Contamination of water
 Spectrography
 numbers neutralization
The figure below shows contaminants analysis and wear products analysis

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Fig 1: contaminants analysis and wear products analysis
b) Vibration analysis
Vibration is a mechanical occurrence whereby oscillations occurs at an equilibrium point.
The word vibration is generated from a Latin word vibrationem which means shaking. The
oscillations can be either random or periodic (Fakher Chaari, 2016, p. 237).
Vibration analysis refers to the analysis of vibrations monitoring data in order to monitor the
behaviour changes in rotating machines which are caused by misalignment, imbalance, bent
shaft, and faults in gear drivers, mechanical looseness and the defects in rolling element
bearings.
Causes and transmission of Vibration in vibration-analysis
 Components and machines vibrates in response to multiple pulsating forces known as
excitation forces such as mass unbalance.