Machinery Lubricant Analysis III

​This course is designed to help you prepare for the ICML Level III Machine Lubricant Analyst (MLA) certification.

Through this Certification Course, participants have the opportunity to accrue 5 Continuing Professional Development (CPD) points. 

Course Outline:

  • How mineral base oil groups compare on nine criteria
  • How synthetic oils compare to mineral oils
  • Advantages and disadvantages of common synthetic lubricants
  • How wear and friction control additives work
  • The role of fatty acids, AW and EP lubrication films
  • 16 factors that cause changes in wear debris concentrations
  • Effects of water on bearings
  • 31 factors leading to abnormal engine wear
  • How to enhance the detection of abnormal wear particle trends
  • One simple technique to help you detect faults earlier
  • Review of technologies used to analyze wear debris
  • Particle size sensitivities of wear particle technologies
  • Comparison of laboratory emission spectrometers
  • How wear particle size infl uences spectrometric analysis
  • How to determine the severity of a wear problem
  • How to evaluate lock-step trends
  • How to normalize for makeup oil
  • Potential sources of metals in oil
  • Best applications for elemental analysis of wear metals
  • Advantages and disadvantages of analytical ferrography
  • How fi ltergrams compare to ferrograms
  • How to characterize particle composition by visual inspection
  • Shape features of common wear particles
  • Common machine wear mechanisms and how to
  • identify them
  • 11 sources of spherical wear particles and how to identify them
  • How to recognize wear zones in gearing
  • Failure detection zones of oil vs. vibration analysis
  • Where oil and vibration analysis overlap
  • Strengths and weaknesses of oil and vibration analysis on
  • detecting 13 machine problems
  • Combining vibration with wear debris analysis for bearing failure analysis
  • How viscosity index impacts an oil’s ability to lubricate
  • Best practices for onsite viscosity analysis
  • Four root causes of oxidation and why they are important
  • The role of antioxidants and how they work
  • Five indicators of oil oxidation
  • How to measure oxidation stability
  • How acid numbers trend with different types of oils
  • Machine diagnostics using neutralization numbers
  • Detecting base oil oxidation with FTIR
  • Strengths and weaknesses of FTIR
  • How sludge and varnish are formed and how to detect them
  • Recommendations for a new lubricant testing plan
  • 14 ways additives are depleted from oil
  • How to detect depletion of 10 common additives
  • How to fi nd the additive date on an oil analysis report
  • Methods for sampling grease
  • Common used grease tests and what they measure
  • 7 grease performance concerns and how to test
  • How grease properties change due to incompatible ​mixtures
  • Onsite Oil Analysis Options
  • How to integrate onsite with offsite oil analysis
  • How to prepare a fi lter patch for particle contamination assessment
  • Review of onsite viscometry, FTIR and particle counter options
  • Small, medium and large budgets for an onsite lab: what to buy
  • Tips for designing an onsite lab space
  • How to select candidate machines for oil analysis
  • Four steps to optimizing interval-based oil changes
  • Considerations for condition-based oil changes
  • Factors infl uencing oil sampling frequencies
  • Tips on working with an offsite lab
  • Five applications for goal-based limits
  • How aging limits signal the approaching end of useful oil life
  • Four applications for rate-ofchange limits
  • Interpreting elemental trends using level limits
  • Seven cost-saving areas for quantifying benefi ts
  • Estimating the value of a predictive maintenance “save”
  • Estimating annual savings per machine
  • Three project evaluation decision tools
  • How to track your program: lubrication KPIs
Machinery Lubrication Analysis I (ISO18436-4)

Course Info

CPD Points: 5

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