Hydrocarbon Processing - January 2021 - 17

Reliability

HEINZ P. BLOCH, RELIABILITY/EQUIPMENT EDITOR
Heinz.Bloch@HydrocarbonProcessing.com

Viewing every maintenance intervention
as an upgrade opportunity
When a long-time maintenance supervisor was promoted to
the head of his refinery's reliability department, he wanted to
make " Precision Maintenance is Our Passion " his banner and
headline. I have always reserved passion for other things because passion for the job often leads to neglect of one's family.
My recommendation was " Every Job as an Opportunity to Upgrade, " or a similar wording.
He then asked for a few examples of upgrading, but took the
position that his facility had several large oil mist lubrication
units and that little more could probably be done. Fortunately,
he agreed that reliability professionals rarely see perfection and
can often provide details that support my suggested heading. He
encouraged me to explain further, asking only that everything
be plausible to his workforce, readily implementable, and pay
back the required monetary outlay within no more than 6 mos.
Following are some of the practical examples I gave him:
1. Pre-purchase a small, portable oil mist unit and place
it in the storeroom. Be prepared to install it near pumps
or blowers experiencing frequent bearing distress.
2. Any pump that fails more than twice in a rolling 18-mos
period should have its oil ring(s) and constant level
lubricator assembly removed and discarded. Thereafter,
pump bearing housings should be connected to one of
several already-existing oil mist headers at this refinery.
3. The breather vents on oil mist-lubricated bearing
housings should be plugged.
4. Only the best available bearing housing protector seals
should be installed, and oil mist should be directed
into the space between an advanced-style bearing
housing protector seal and the adjacent bearing.
As shown in FIG. 1, the oil mist will then flow through
the bearing and exit at the bottom drain.1,2 From there,
the condensed oil flows back into the small oil mist unit
or into a collecting pot to be reclaimed.
5. Electric motors should have their bearings connected
to the existing plant-wide oil mist systems at this
facility (per FIG. 1).
In the years since 1990, Hydrocarbon Processing has published
a few dozen similar ways of turning every maintenance intervention into a cost-effective upgrade. This publication has described similar upgrades relating to mechanical seals, seal flush
strategies, small steam turbine packing glands, and many more.
The various upgrades can be found in the referenced books.
For his part, and because he now finds himself in the enviable
position of heading an entire department, our reliability department head could restore the long-lost art of reading technical
books. He might consider mandating that the best-in-class prac-

FIG. 1. Oil mist path through electric motor bearings equipped with
three modern, single-face magnetic seals. Source: AESSEAL Inc.

tices described in these books are being compared to, or contrasted against, the " as presently done here " practices at his refinery.
Productive meetings could be held to demonstrate that the
addition of oil mist to electric motors in an installation where
oil mist is presently supplying lubricant only to pump bearings will have a 3-mos payback. Upgrading below-average seal
flush systems has also resulted in paybacks of less than 6 mos,
as did the routine retrofitting and upgrading to cartridge-style
steam turbine packing glands. These and many other opportunities present themselves today, decades after we began making them public.
LITERATURE CITED
1 Bloch, H. P., D. Ehlert and F. Geitner, Optimized Equipment Lubrication, Oil Mist
Technology, and Storage Preservation, Reliabilityweb.com, Fort Myers, Florida,
January 2020.
2
Bloch, H. P., Petrochemical Machinery Insights, Elsevier Publishing, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, 2017.
HEINZ P. BLOCH resides in Montgomery, Texas. His professional
career commenced in 1962 and included long-term
assignments as Exxon Chemical's Regional Machinery
Specialist for the U.S. He has authored or coauthored more
than 770 publications, among them 23 comprehensive books
on practical machinery management, failure analysis, failure
avoidance, compressors, steam turbines, pumps, oil mist
lubrication and optimized lubrication for industry. Mr. Bloch holds BS and MS
degrees (cum laude) in mechanical engineering from the Newark College of
Engineering (NCE) and is one of 10 inaugural inductees into NCE's Hall of Fame,
which honors its most distinguished alumni.
Hydrocarbon Processing | JANUARY 2021 17

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Hydrocarbon Processing - January 2021

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