Advancements in Onsite and Laboratory Ferrous Wear Debris Testing

The Analex range of Ferrous Debris Monitors from Kittiwake (UK) provide a highly accurate means of detecting and measuring ferrous wear debris in lubricating oils, hydraulic oils, and greases irrespective of particle size. The rugged, compact and stable monitors deliver retrievable data quickly and simply, ensuring fast, accurate and consistent management of oil condition samples. The range is ideal for all industrial sectors from power plants, to mines and quarries, railways and heavy construction, and the technology is used worldwide to improve production efficiency, reduce equipment downtime and increase
operational profitability.
The AnalexfdMplus is the latest fdM ferrous debris monitor from Kittiwake and comes with increased software functionality, a more intuitive interface and a novel sample adaptor system allowing the user to test from a multitude of sample vessels including 4ml pots, 5ml tubes, 5 and 10ml syringes and 50ml bottles. The AnalexfdMplus is an extremely accurate, repeatable, self-contained, rugged unit designed for use in laboratories, on-site or in remote field locations where laboratory analysis is often impractical or impossible.
It provides engineers with a means of "on-the-spot" measurement of ferrous wear debris in the lubricant and or grease samples and gives trend-able information assisting the engineer or laboratory technicians with planning preventative maintenance programs, and helps ensure informed decision-making when assessing machinery and equipment condition. The beauty of the fdMplus is that it will measure ferrous wear debris in all types of oil – from gearbox lubricants through to hydraulics and as long as you can the sample into one of the many containers, it will take a measurement. One of the other key benefits is that it will also measure ferrous wear debris found in grease. The grease sample is placed into a small 5ml pot and this is placed into a special insert allowing a measurement to be taken. In other words, a totally flexible instrument.
Utilising the latest in Inductive Coil Magnetometry the AnalexfdMplus detects and measures the mass of ferrous wear debris within the sample, irrespective of the size of the wear particles present. The result is displayed in PPM (parts per million) and can then be trended with accepted linearity over a wide range of ferrous debris content and particle sizes. The technology is a sensitive magnetometer and will, therefore, only measure metals which are magnetic. It is necessary to understand the relevance of measuring ferrous wear debris as many people will ask “what about all the other metals?”. Many lubricated compartments are made up mainly of iron and should abnormal wear conditions be occurring it is typically an increase in iron wear debris that will be seen in the first instance. It is, therefore, vital to have an instrument that will accurately monitoring the trend of ferrous debris occurring in the lubricant and if this shows a significant increase this is indicative of abnormal wear conditions occurring thus
prompting further investigative action to be taken.
The ability of the AnalexfdMplus to operate on 12v provides access to laboratory grade instrumentation to users in the field.
The remoteness of many industrial plants around the world that do not have ready access to either their own or a commercial laboratory makes this a vital tool. With a display resolution of 1ppm and a range (dependant on sample size) of up to 30,000ppm, the unit is an extremely useful onsite tool which can provide readings as fast as you can load the media. For labs that would like to automate the test process, a robot is available.
Data from each sample is stored in the internal memory which can then be displayed on board the fdMplus either in graphical format or tabular format with easy transfer of data to a host PC by the RS232 interface. This data transfer provides for trending of the ferrous metals in the oil or grease samples. With up to 30 groups and 40 pieces of equipment available per group the user can store data in almost any way they like. Data entry is via a simple and intuitive touch pad screen which can record; Automatic date and time linked to each group, equipment or sample number, along with equipment number or identification and sample number or identification and lubricant Hours (0 - 999999 hrs).