Abstract
This work reports the results of a study on the behaviour of five sensors recently developed for oil conditions monitoring, installed in-line in an experimental test rig for lubricants. The tests were carried out on seven oils of different origins (one synthetic ester, two bio-based synthetic esters, four vegetable oils) and use (two UTTOs and five hydraulic oils), under controlled working conditions, according to a specially designed test method. At first, the study concerned the identification of the conditions for the correct sensors’ installation. Then, the tests started applying to the fluids severe work cycles intended to accelerate oil ageing. The data of viscosity, permittivity, relative humidity, electric conductivity, particle contamination, and ferro-magnetic particles provided by the sensors were compared to the results of laboratory analyses made on oil samples taken during the tests with the aim of verifying the sensors measurements accuracy and reliability and selecting the more suitable ones to in-line oil conditions monitoring, in the perspective of introducing them also in field applications, e.g., on agricultural tractors, for preventing damages due to oil deterioration, and in managing the machine maintenance.
Highlights
Viscosity—is probably the most important parameter for lubricants or hydraulic fluids and is commonly measured in laboratory as Kinematic Viscosity, according to the ASTM D445 standard method [29] by means of viscometers, calibrated, and thermo-stated tubes measuring the time required for the complete flow of a fixed oil amount
We find very high correlation coefficients in D1 and E1 for all sensors data (except for the S2(calc@20 ◦ C) ) where, the probability of uncorrelation is higher than 0.05, probably due to the low number of data available for the test
Measurements of proper parameters, the sensors allow the Through detectionthe of measurements proper physical of parameters, the sensors should allow to the detection of any variations inofoil characteristics lubricity during operations, helping prevent plant any variations in sensors oil characteristics of lubricity operations, plant damage
Summary
The diffusion of systems for predictive maintenance purpose was favoured by the availability of ever more performing sensors, from the point of view of miniaturization, accuracy, and reliability. Such characteristics make some of them suitable for in-line installation for realtime monitoring of the key components of plants and processes based, among the others, on transmissions and hydrodynamic machines. The integrity of the latter can be mainly safeguarded by monitoring the properties of the lubricants and hydraulic fluids used to operate them. Such applications are extending to the agricultural sector
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