In-house or offsite Oil Analysis lab

Bingo !

you are apsolutely right , every user or atleast core industries must have a on site lab (FOR SURE !) - we are looking for good economical vendours who can provide equipment for wear debris analysis , TAN / TBN , water content , Viscosity etc...

quote:

Originally posted by Urja Enterprises Mumbai:
Bingo !

you are apsolutely right , every user or atleast core industries must have a on site lab (FOR SURE !) - we are looking for good economical vendours who can provide equipment for wear debris analysis , TAN / TBN , water content , Viscosity etc...

I think this statement is a bit overboard. In fact, only few industries and companies can justify expense of having decent onsite lab (instrumentation and analyst). To have a particle counter on site is OK, but ICP, RULER, FTIR, equipment for microscopy analysis, viscometer, potentiometric titrator, Karl Fisher setup,, etc, and a full time analyst trained to run all that equipment? It is La La Land for most in the industry, unless they simultaneously add a commercial aspect to this testing. Sending sample to commercial testing labs is and will remain the preferred way in the industry for a long time.

Mr John -

"simultaneously add a commercial aspect to this testing" - Boss Core Sector - Buzzzzz Production / Maintenance is of paramount importance and not few bucks here and there.. what about opportunity loss due to lac of diagnosis of the fluid if not over board - oil and blood have a lot in common , a lot of progressive people do have some kits for themselves at home to test there blood (sugar)...

More over my post reflects my opinion alone ! and i still feal every user or atleast core industries must have a on site lab.

I have enough data to support my statement - we can share it off this forum.

quote:

Originally posted by Urja Enterprises Mumbai:
Mr John -... Maintenance is of paramount importance and not few bucks here and there.

What you mean "few bucks here and there"? The instrumentation I mentioned should be a bear bone of a decent onsite lab, and one would need to fork out several hundred thousands dollars to acquire instrumentation. Any training and labor expenses would be paid separately. Your statement about the cost is rediculous, unless you are peddling some cheap alternative, and try to fish for customers in this forum.

John,

Before jumping to having an onsite oil lab analysis we need to provide a feasibility or project study if this will really be an advantage or benefit. My last work was in a Mining firm before I put up my own organization, our monthly lubrication cost was around P 2,000,000 (pesos) or $ 50,000.00 divide the peso by 48 to get the conversion, but that was nothing our spare cost and overhauling damages such as hydraulic pumps amount to 4 times the cost of lubricants, not to mention other mechanical parts such as bearing seals etc.

In my study in this mining firm the equipment damages and lubricant cost far outweights the total cost of an in-house lab hence management approved it.

What is important in having an in-house lab is to have a feasiblity study and determine the ROI .

My Warm Regards,

Rolly Angeles
www.rsareliality.com

quote:

Originally posted by Rolly Angeles:
John,

Before jumping to having an onsite oil lab analysis we need to provide a feasibility or project study if this will really be an advantage or benefit. My last work was in a Mining firm before I put up my own organization, our monthly lubrication cost was around P 2,000,000 (pesos) or $ 50,000.00 divide the peso by 48 to get the conversion, but that was nothing our spare cost and overhauling damages such as hydraulic pumps amount to 4 times the cost of lubricants, not to mention other mechanical parts such as bearing seals etc.

In my study in this mining firm the equipment damages and lubricant cost far outweights the total cost of an in-house lab hence management approved it.

What is important in having an in-house lab is to have a feasiblity study and determine the ROI .

My Warm Regards,

Rolly Angeles
www.rsareliality.com

Absolutely agree. If the cost could be justified – having in-house or onsite lab is a way to go. While talking about “labs”, where we might disagree is what minimum instrumentation and the extent of analysis constitutes a LAB. Having some years of experience as an analyst in a couple of commercial labs, I have a hard time calling a shop with a couple of portable instruments – a “LAB”. However, I still believe that the best solution is a synergy between onsite testing and commercial lab testing. While it make sense for a site to acquire instruments for needed frequent testing/checking of some critical lubricant characteristics/parameters, there is no sense of buying testing equipment to perform once in a year testing (e.g. RPVOT and similar tests). In addition, hand-held instruments’ accuracy needs to be independently verified if one want to put fate of the equipment into numbers generated by them.

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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Rolly Angeles:
John,
My last work was in a Mining firm before I put up my own organization, our monthly lubrication cost was around $ 50,000.00 , but that was nothing our spare cost and overhauling damages such as hydraulic pumps amount to 4 times the cost of lubricants, not to mention other mechanical parts such as bearing seals etc.

In my study in this mining firm the equipment damages and lubricant cost far outweights the total cost of an in-house lab hence management approved it.
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Mr Angeles,
you are 100% correct. In my opinion, every industry possesing some hydraulic machines must have a little laboratory with some essential testing equipments, like (A)Viscosity gauge (allowable Error 2%),(B)Hot Plate for Water crackle test,(C) Karl Fischer Equipment for moisture (D)some cheap digital equipment for moisture detection ,(E) TAN testing kit,(F) Laser Particle counter or (G)Millipore Patch Test Kit with one microscope.

You may have First option [A+B+ (C or D) + E + F]
or you may have second option [A+B+ (C or D) +E+ G]
The total cost of option 1 will be 16,000 USD and for second option it will be 2,300 USD in India.

Just one semi skilled person with little proper training will be able to handle all these equipments successfully.His duty will be to take out oil samples at regular intervals from every machine, test it with all the above equipments and keep a record of all the results. This will certainly give a good idea of the condition of oil and machines to the management. Then it will be easier to make them understand that oil should be kept clean and free from moisture and its TAN within allowable limits. Naturally with this mindset they will be ready to buy the oil purifying systems, which they are reluctant to buy now, thinking it to be unnecessary expense. Keeping the oil superclean will certainly increase the life of their machine components, will reduce breakdowns and maintenance budget.

They should be encouraged to go for such small oil testing labs at their place, once they are habituated of talking about the cleanliness of oil, they will be ready to send their oil samples to more sophisticated labs for advanced testing.May be they make a schedule of testing oil of every machine after every 500 hours in house and sending the sample to advanced lab after every 1500 or 2000 hours, this duration may be fixed keeping in view the finance available.

ROI can be calculated to convince the management, it will help to save lot of oil as the change period may increase. If the management buys a proper filtration system, this small lab will certainly convince the management of enormous benefits accruing from keeping oil clean.

If there are proffesional labs in India and in Abroad simply concentrating on used oil analysis only with all facilities like Physico chemical analysis,wear metal analysis,soot analysis and FTIR analysis,why should all users try to install their own labs.It is not simple thing, as the cost will be very high to install all the above said instruments.

Along with ROI there are many reasons to have on-site lab
AT NORIA conference this past week - most heavily attended session was probably on sludge and varnish due to problem power generation is having with varnish in its turbines. Due to changes in additives and basestocks, the common techniques such as TAN, viscosity and particle count as well as RPVOT and FTIR (if amines used in antioxidant package) have proven to be unreliable in predicting varnish - one trip caused by varnish is estimated to cost over $75,000. So an on-site lab with equipment specifically designed to predict varnish is easily justified.
US Air Force only uses emission spectrometer to monitor wear metals - need to have analysis done after each flight - no time to send out for oil analysis - high top off rates keep oil fresh so currently no need for oil condition analysis. However, tighter/more powerful engines will make oil condition analysis relevant - turn around time will require on-site
Our Instron lab was losing one design of hydraulic pumps prior to warranty period even though oil condition OK. Determined ZDDP was depleting followed by failure so on-site analysis combined with routine off-site used to monitor that specific failure mechanism as well as over all system health
So on-site could be due to changing oil formulations, changing equipment designs, fast turn arounds, specific failure mechanisms as well as ROI.