REDUCE DOWN TIME

PROBLEM:

Maintaining Dragline Gearbox Lubricants to low cleanliness standards presents several issues.
• Replacing the dirty fluid is costly
• The fluid is high viscosity and creates high differential pressure across standard hydraulic style filters.
• The environment inside the “house” is difficult to maintain cleanly.
• The temperature changes drastically in most mining locations.

SOLUTION:

Working with a large global mining company our personnel worked through a prototype program to design a “kidney loop” style system to achieve below specification ISO Cleanliness levels while providing filter service life that was acceptable to maintenance personnel. The system employs Pall USRT Filter media that maintains low pressure drops. While others struggled, we were able to maintain ISO codes at or below 17/15/13 with a 20” filter with service life greater than 3 months.

The system was designed with a PLC driven variable speed drive to adjust flow rates based on temperature. It was also designed as compact as possible to limit the amount of “house” floor space consumed.

RESULT:

The company has moved fluid change outs from every 6 months to 3 years and counting. The purpose of the project was to have cleaner fluids for improvement in component health. The results of that will be ongoing but the project had a 12 month ROI with just fluid cost savings. The chart on the right displays the particle count reduction.

PROBLEM:

Customer is getting high particle counts on fluid samples sent to labs for evaluation. Filters do not seem to be helping.

SOLUTION:

In almost all cases we have found that the labs the customer is using employ “light interruption” style particle counters, commonly referred to as “Laser Counters.” These counters are very difficult to use in low pressure applications or in dark thick fluids. In one recent study we found that the lab could not identify ONE customer that was in specification.

CCS personnel perform an on-site audit with a Mesh Blockage Counter and verify those results with patch test. The fluids are almost always much cleaner than what the labs are reporting.

In the example above a customer had ISO 22/20/18 reported by the lab. “Patch 1” is an example of what fluid in that range would look like. “Patch 2” is an actual photo of what the customer’s fluid looked like. The Mesh Blockage Counter showed readings of -/13/11.

The laser counter was giving readings that were skewed very high causing the customer to try to remove contaminants that weren’t there.

RESULT:

Customer has accurate, verified fluid condition readings and saves time and money that had previously been spent trying to correct inaccurate lab reports.
The results are greater equipment availability and lower maintenance cost.

PROBLEM:

Regulations are calling for tighter limits on fuel efficiency and exhaust contaminates. To reach the new standards equipment manufacturers are providing engines with tighter injector clearances. Traditional filtration on bulk fuel and fuel distribution can create issues involving short “on- board” fuel filter life and worse, injector failure.

SOLUTION:

Traditional filters used on fuel are from the hydraulic industry. They are designed to be used in a “multi-pass” arrangement where the same fluid passes through the media over and over. This isn’t effective in fuel applications as the fuel is typically only filtered in and out of the tank. Our systems are designed with Pall Corporation filter media that can achieve well below manufacturers cleanliness specifications in a single pass.

The system was designed with a PLC driven variable speed drive to adjust flow rates based on temperature. It was also designed as compact as possible to limit the amount of “house” floor space consumed.

RESULT:

We recently worked with a mining operation that commissioned 18 new CAT 793F style trucks. We designed and installed filter systems for the inlet and outlet of the bulk tanks. The tanks held 20,000 gallons. The first truck lost an injector almost immediately but investigation found that it had been fuelled by a lube truck that wasn’t loaded from the filtered tanks. Once this operational issue was corrected the fleet has operated 14 months without an additional injector failure.

The key is the filter media used. It is designed for “single pass” performance. We consistently maintain fuel cleanliness in the ISO range of 15/13/11 or below.

The results are greater equipment availability and lower maintenance cost.