Efficient Plant June 2023 - 20

feature | lubrication technologies
Make precision
lubrication a
foundational pillar
for asset reliability.
Avoid
IT'S BEEN ESTIMATED that more than
50% of failures to rotating equipment can
be tied to lubrication, making precision
lubrication a foundational pillar for asset
reliability. What exactly is a lubrication
failure? To some it may simply mean that no
lubricant is present while, to others, it could
mean that the wrong lubricant was used.
Lubrication-related failures span a range of
possible issues and outcomes, meaning our
approach to failure prevention also needs to
be expansive.
To address any failure mode, we fi rst need
to look at the failure, determine its potential
impact on the organization, and develop an
eff ective maintenance strategy. Oſt entimes,
Failure Mode Eff ect Analysis (FMEA) is
used. FMEA is a key component of an overall
Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM)
strategy. Th e outcome of a lubrication20
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specifi c FMEA is deployment of a series of
preventive, predictive, and proactive actions
and activities, designed to either prevent or
detect incipient lubrication failure.
Preventive activities are tasks that are
performed according to a set schedule-
either time, distance, or production cycles.
Preventive tasks work well where there is
well-defi ned time, distance, or cycle-count
correlation to the failure mode. Simple
examples might be changing engine oil
every 8,000 hours or greasing motor
bearings every six months.
While preventive maintenance may
be the fi rst line of defense, many failures
are not time dependent. As such, a better
approach to failure prevention is to use a
predictive-maintenance strategy in which
measurements and data drive our decisions
and actions. Examples might be vibration
Mark Barnes, PhD, CMRP
Des-Case Corp.
Lubrication Failures
analysis or wear-debris detection using
oil analysis. Predictive maintenance, oſt en
used as part of a broader condition-based
maintenance (CBM) strategy, allows corrective
action to be taken before catastrophic
failure occurs.
While it's vital to detecting incipient
lubrication failures, predictive maintenance,
by itself, does not eliminate failures, nor
does it extend component life. Imagine
installing vibration sensors on a critical
asset and taking continuous vibration
readings. While the sensors may pick up
early signs of incipient failure such as
imbalance or misalignment, only by taking
the appropriate corrective action will a
failure be avoided.
Perhaps more importantly, predictive
maintenance does not extend the life
expectancy of an asset. Oil analysis, as an
JUNE 2023
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Efficient Plant June 2023

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