Back in the late 1930's, the fibers industry was having trouble with their high speed spindles. Grease would not work and liquid oil ran too hot. To solve the problem, Sweeden invented oil mist. Oil mist didn't make it to the USA until the mid 60's but is now used in literally tens of...
Oil mist when properly engineered, installed, operated, and maintained reduces rolling element bearing failures by 90%. It does that by eliminating the inherent dirt particles that are in new oil, eliminating the dirt particles introduced by personnel by improper handling, eliminating...
Air oil and oil mist are two different things. Air oil is liquid transported to bearings in minute amounts through divider blocks. Oil mist is oil in 1-3 micron sized droplets in suspension in air. The proportions are 1 part oil and 200,000 parts air. If there is a mess, the oil mist systems...
Lubricating oils are specifically exempted by the California Air Resources Board as a volatile organic compound. They are usually the leaders in air quality. One facet to consider is that air mist is not a vapor but very small droplets in an air suspension. The droplets will drop out of the...
Motor and pump life are also very much related to lubrication. A study at Texas A&M and literature from SKF both say that bearings lubricated with oil mist will achieve significant longer lives. SKF says that the L10 live can be improved by a factor of 6.
I am not sure why you are having problems with particulates I suspect that it may be because of water content above 100 ppm. Water causes corrosion, is a catalyst for sludge formation, depletes additives, and leads to bacterial colonies. You need to get your water down below 100 ppm. My...
No matter what the lubrication mode, bearings will eventually fail from fatigue. Having said that, there is one refinery in the NW that uses oil mist and claims a MTBR of 10-11 years. I don't think that this recored is possible without oil mist lubrication.
I don't know about the bearings to which you are referring but SKF tells me that they see degradation of their bearings at 200 ppm. Most manufacturers of oil do not permit water content to exceed 100 ppm. Water is a catalst for sludge formation, causes corrosion, encourages biological growth...
Oil mist is one part oil and 200,000 parts air. That is far below the lean limits of flammability. Concentrations of 1::250 is required to support combustion.
Having been a major user for many years, the only downside to closed loop oil mist is the cost. Having said that, the payouts that I know about are between 6 months and 2 years. That is not bad considering that you can reduce bearing failures by as much as 90%. I know of one user in West...
I think you will find oil mist lubrication is far easier and has fewer problems than grease. Users say that their MTBR is significantly improved when they switch to oil mist. It is interesting that we have automated so many of our processes but perform the lubrication function pretty much the...
Air stripping technology is the only technique that I am aware of that will remove the 3 phases of water: free, emulsified, and dissolved. It is less expensive to purchase and to operate than centrifuges and vacuum dehydration. Not only that, it is more reliable because it has no moving parts...
There are in excess of 20,000 pumps in USA refineries that are lubricated with pure oil mist (this does not count pumps in other businesses or in other countries). There is no know case in which oil mist has caused a fire.
