Innovations MONEY-SAVING ROAST

With 60 pieces of heavy mobile equipment and more than 200 pieces of plant machinery at Luscar Sterco’s Coal Valley mine, near Edson, Alta., preventive/ predictive maintenance is an obvious priority. Under the direction of Maintenance Manager Robert Watts, Luscar’s maintenance group administers a multi-million-dollar budget. Watts and his crew continually stress the use of innovative methods of reducing the possibility of catastrophic failures. One such technique used for predictive maintenance is the scheduled use of oil analysis. Early in 1987, Luscar Sterco became dissatisfied with the limitations of traditional oil analysis techniques and slow mail delivery of oil analysis test results. So it decided to take a new approach. It entered into a contract with an Alberta-based maintenance consulting company capable of combining innovative oil analysis with the development of a unique computer software system. The system, called roast (Remote Oil Analysis Service Terminal), makes it possible for Luscar Sterco’s maintenance department to communicate directly with the oil analysis laboratory’s computer.

Using ibm-compatible equipment at the mine site, the system communicates with a central computer at the laboratory in Edmonton, about 250 km from the mine. Each day, oil samples are sent by courier to the laboratory. These oil samples are registered on the Luscar data base with summary descriptions of the samples automatically recorded by the lab computer, where a list of these samples is printed for reference by lab personnel. At the same time, any completed sample test results from the previous day are communicated back to the mine’s computer. Any component wear or oil contamination problems that have been observed at the lab are immediately printed out at the mine site in a daily problem summary report. Complete test results are stored on the computer data base at the mine site and can be accessed for later reporting, for production of a variety of informative graphs, or for further analysis of wear or contamination trends.

“The system not only reports oil analysis results within approximately 24 hours, but it allows us to accumulate and maintain a complete oil analysis history for each machine right here on the mine site,” says Ronald Bartel, a senior maintenance foreman with Luscar. “We can browse through a machine file on the computer and compare test results, or print a complete history, or compare the results of one machine to another by using the graphs.”

The system was designed by Industra Lube, the oil analysis division of Maintenance Lubrication Services of Edmonton. Larry Dick, who co-ordinated the design and implementation of the system, says a few implementation problems were encountered, particularly with telephone line communications. There have also been a few programming changes that were necessary, and these redesign features have dramatically improved the program. Many of the changes were done at the request of Luscar’s maintenance staff. “They knew what they needed and we accommodated them,” Dick says.

The system will automatically accumulate machine service hours, record and store component serial number changes and purge old oil analysis histories that are no longer required. These features make the system easy to use and provide information that is quickly accessible and which complements the preventive maintenance program.

The mine has placed about 70 components and systems on the oil analysis program. Included are diesel engines, hydraulic systems and wheel motors, as well as selected gear drives and generator-bearing housings.

Traditionally, the mine used standard wear metals analysis to monitor equipment condition, but this technique alone did not provide any warning of large particle oil contamination in the lubricated systems. Watt explained: “When a seal fails in a gear case or wheel motor, large pieces of dirt, coal dust and other foreign material can enter and cause serious damage before wear metals testing can pick it up. That is why we use a sediment test combined with wear metals analysis. Wear metals testing monitors the wear rates, but the sediment test warns us if we have a contamination problem.”

DeVar Chisholm, general manager of Industra Lube, agrees. “Traditional spectrograph wear metals testing only measures elements and dirt particles up to a maximum size of eight microns. Pieces of dirt, metal or coal dust in the range of 40 to 50 microns or larger can do a lot of damage before wear metals testing will indicate a problem; for that reason, large particle contamination testing should also be done.” When an unsatisfactory level of contamination is reported, the company can take immediate action to drain and flush the component and prevent a failure.

If contamination of any particular system or component continues to be a problem, the company looks at other contamination control techniques such as improved filtration, more frequent servicing, or improvement in the operating conditions of the machine. The remote oil analysis service terminal allows for a quick comparison of wear and contamination trends and takes corrective action.

Watts went on to explain that justifying an oil analysis program that provides such beneficial predictive maintenance information in such a rapid manner is easy. “The payback is achieved when the system predicts a catastrophic engine failure which, if ignored, could cost us $50,000 to $80,000 dollars.”