Active Lubricant Condition Monitoring

Abstract

Lubrication in a mechanical system is like blood flowing through a human body. It is a great source to detect in advance any troubles in the system. As blood analysis shows the diseases in our body in a machine the oil analysis shows the fault in a system. Active lubricant condition monitoring is a great prediction technique which would help improve the reliability and reduce the maintenance costs for a system. The paper discusses about how to develop an Active oil condition monitoring where oil condition can be monitored online and how to achieve an active maintenance action. It discusses the design and setup of an oil condition monitoring system on a test bench provided. Different oil degradation parameters are analysed and sensors are introduced to monitor this parameters. Integration of microcontroller for wireless communication and use of different software’s to acquire and process the data from the sensors to provide the real time condition of the system is discussed. This includes different actuation system that can be introduced to help the maintenance of the system to minimum and reduce the maintenance or damaging of the system components.