A tried and tested method of condition monitoring, oil analysis reveals a wealth of critical information about the health of machinery components, providing invaluable insight into what maintenance action should be taken. For example, the levels of contamination of the oil (or grease) can indicate certain potential wear problems.

However, although comprehensive wear tables exist that are useful in some circumstances, these should not be relied upon as the sole source of data for a preventive maintenance strategy.

It is always preferable to assess the oil analysis results in the context of all the circumstances under which the component operates, to gain a holistic picture and make more informed maintenance decisions. This is the approach taken by WearCheck's team of eight highly-qualified diagnosticians, who have a combined experience of over 150 years and 7.5 million samples.

Holistic diagnosis and some of the misleading interpretations of contaminants are explained in Technical Bulletin 57.
Click here to download issue 57.