CONDITION MONITORING OF LUBRICANTS USING WEAR DEBRIS ANALYSIS

Condition monitoring or predictive maintenance is the most commonly used technique to eliminate the failure of a machine and thereby increasing production time. This is a non-destructive method to foresee the problems within the machine well in advance. There area number of valid techniques available for condition monitoring. In this work a device has been fabricated and tested to identify the wearer particles which are present in the lubricating oil. Oil samples are collected at a regular intervals and tested for presence of worn out particles and hence leading to health assessment of the machine. The worn out particles both ferrous and non-ferrous can be identified with a photo diode which in turn activate a LED and also a circuit to give sound alarm. The device can also detect the ferrous particles with the help of a magnet, which encloses the oil tube.