We have a fleet of over two hundred mobile machines in our mine and we sample the hydraulic tanks in the more critical ones.Were should I set the flags for Iron PPM. Right now we just trend the results but flagging should eliminate much of the work.
Awaiting your comments.

What is the iron content in the new hydraulic oil? Is it zero?

New hydraulic oil is either 0 or 1 PPM

Hello DenisD

I am not really great at this oil stuff but I will give you my 2 cents worth. You would probably get more traffic on the Noria board.

I have no idea what type of number to apply to iron content. It will undoubtably depend on the types of machinery which you didn't define very well. It will also depend on your surroundings which you said was a mine (iron ore by any chance). If I were doing this I would group machines by their individual types and environment and then work from the average of each group. A lot of machines will shed iron as part of the normal wearing process like gearboxes. So you have to consider that and the time since the last fluid change. The software you have may, but I doubt it, have a rate of change alarm in it. Some thing like a machine has 1,000 hours of operation on the oil change and the iron should be XX ppm it would be considered normal but if it reached XXXX ppm in that time period it would ring a bell. If it does have this type of alarm I would use it because it could indicate excessive wear.

Hope you get some more responses. I learn a lot from these postings.

Dennis,

You may want to visit my website under articles portion and download the Oil Analysis tables, I have a list of limits for iron and other metals for oil and hope you find it useful.

http://www.rsareliability.com/articles.htm

My Warm Regards,

Dennis,
I have had a look at Rolly12's website, I two work at a mine site (coal)and finding the information you require and getting suppliers to come up with the correct number is very difficult.
Over the years I have used the following for my sites.

If my good clean system has Iron levels of <20ppm that is acceptable.

>80ppm I would resample to check the result. If this level remains then I would reduce the monitoring frequency back to weekly.

>120ppm I would carry out a filtergram (to see if it is cutting ,slidding or other type of wear)on the sample and would also arrange to have the system filtered to get it back to the correct cleanliness level.


If during the resample the trend goes up three times in a row this is also an indication that something is deteriorating.

For us if we see the iron levels going up I would also be keeping an eye on the silicon and tin etc, as these will generally be going up as well. Check breathers and seal areas. Lastly keep a watch on the visocity levels!

I hope this can help.

Hooch