CONTAMINATION CONTROL DELIVERY SYSTEMS LUBRICATION

Deliver Clean Lube Four Ways

Ken Bannister | November 18, 2018

Depending on space and needs, there are four

recirculating-oil-decontamination system variations
that will keep an asset’s moving parts lubricated with
fresh oil.
 Recirculating-oil systems, such as those shown in the illustration above and in
this photo, can reduce maintenance costs, improve performance, and
significantly extend asset life. Courtesy Howard Marten Co. Ltd, Pickering,
Ontario (howardmarten.com).
By Ken Bannister, MEch Eng (UK), CMRP, MLE, Contributing Editor
In the “end to end” process and manufacturing world, industries such as pulp and
paper, petrochemical, energy, and steel employ equipment that favors large,
centralized recirculating-oil lubrication and hydraulic systems designed to move
hundreds of gallons of oil per minute. This requires large reservoirs designed to
hold hundreds to many thousand of gallons of oil.

Recirculating-oil systems deliver lubricating oil on a continual basis to many

hundreds of lubricating points that are designed to allow the oil to flow across the
bearing point and return back to the reservoir to be decontaminated, cooled and,
once again, delivered to the bearing. This repetitive cycle can continue around
the clock.

Because systems are sometimes operating in non-controlled environments, i.e.,

open to air, many contaminants such as production process material, moisture,
and plain old silica dirt regularly make their way into the lubricant. These
contaminants must be dealt with before the lubricant is resent on its next
lubrication cycle. If not dealt with quickly, contamination will abrade bearing
surfaces, deplete the oil’s additive package, oxidize the oil, and render it harmful
to the very bearings it is designed to protect.

To combat contamination, oil can be changed on a regular-to-accelerated basis,

based on its cleanliness—as is the practice in small to mid-sized recirculating
systems. However, with very large hydraulic and recirculating systems, the time
taken to perform an oil change can greatly affect the uptime utilization of an
asset. At the same time, an oil change can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars
to purchase oil, store and pre-filter the oil to the required cleanliness standard,
and responsibly dispose of the used oil. With the cost of downtime, it is not
unusual to experience six-figure costs per oil change.

To significantly reduce the amount of oil changes required on large recirculating

systems, there are four major “in service” decontamination (sometimes referred
to purification) processes designed to offset maintenance, reliability, and
excessive downtime issues.
In all systems, the return oil will usually first pass through a low-pressure gravity
filter on the return line prior to entering the reservoir. A baffled reservoir will act
as a first-stage cooling process prior to the oil passing through a suction filter into
one of four decontamination-system designs:

Fig. 1: Basic Continuous Full-Flow System. In continuous duplex continuous

full-flow decontamination systems, the entire oil volume filtered twice and cooled
before moving to a machine element or bearing.

Continuous Full Flow

In continuous full-flow decontamination systems, the entire oil volume is
pumped from the reservoir, through a strainer to take out large solid
contaminants, then on through the primary filter element (usually a bag-style
filter) to remove smaller contaminants before passing through a cooler on its way
to the machine element or bearing (See Fig. 1). In 24/7 industries, the filter can
be duplexed (as shown) and, depending on the control design, manually or
automatically switched to the secondary filter once the working-filter pressure
differential indicates the media is saturated with contaminant.

Continuous Auxiliary
If no decontamination system exists, and/or tight real estate does not allow for an
inline “built in” full-flow decontamination system, a continuous auxiliary
decontamination system can be used. In this system, an independent pump draws
lubricant from the reservoir and, depending on the design requirement, can then
pass it through a number of decontamination processes that may include a
centrifuge to extract water; a large-micron filter for large contaminants; or a
small-micron, fine-contaminant, depth-type filter (analogous to pushing fluid
through a toilet-paper-roll-style filter media, compared to a gross-contaminant
filter similar to a screen-style nylon stocking). An additional option is to use any
combination of these filter types. Once passed through the filter, the oil is
returned to the main oil-recirculation system for cooling prior to release to the
bearings.
Continuous Bypass
When the working-environment air is filtered and the temperature controlled, the
contamination risk is significantly reduced. In these circumstances a simpler
continuous-bypass decontamination system might be preferred.

In this system, the main oil flow is screened and pumped continuously through an
adjustable pressure-control valve that can allow as much as 75% of the fluid to
pass directly to the cooler. The remaining oil passes continuously into a bypass
loop in which the lubricant is filtered, similar to a full-flow system, and returned
to the delivery system for distribution through the cooler and then the bearings.

A variation of this system allows for a full-flow-through filter circuit with a

continuous bypass circuit plumbed to allow a small percentage of the oil to pass
through a depth-type polishing filter that is once again returned into the primary
delivery circuit.

Periodic Batch
When no permanently plumbed decontamination filtration circuit exists and oil is
contained in a smaller footprint, it’s possible to use a periodic batch-
decontamination process. In this process, the machine is shut down and oil
evacuated to a mobile tank and decontaminated in a separate area or off site by a
third-party contractor. This system works well when there are numerous
machines using the same oil. In this case, oil cleaned off site from another
machine can be used by a machine undergoing oil evacuation. Its used oil can
then be cleaned and polished, ready for the next oil change out, significantly
reducing the oil-change cost. For large turbines, oil can be made to last for
decades using this process.

Oil is an integral component of any machine or process. Decontamination

systems treat the oil as an asset, not a consumable, resulting in financial benefits
for a machine’s life cycle and the corporate bottom line. EP
Contributing editor Ken Bannister is co-author, with Heinz Bloch, of the
book Practical Lubrication for Industrial Facilities, 3rd Edition (The Fairmont
Press, Lilburn, GA). As managing partner and principal consultant for Engtech
Industries Inc., Innerkip, Ontario, he specializes in the implementation of
lubrication-effectiveness reviews to ISO 55001 standards, asset-management
systems, and training. Contact him at kbannister@engtechindustries.com, or
telephone 519-469-9173.