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:

Base Oil Fundamentals

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

Understanding and Analyzing Machine Wear

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

Integrating Oil Analysis with Vibration Analysis

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

Fluid Properties 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

Additive Depletion

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

Grease Analysis

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

Designing an Oil Analysis Program

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

Cost—Benefit Analysis

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

Course Info