By Bryan Debshaw, POLARIS Laboratories®

Most maintenance and reliability programs today recognize the value of oil analysis for rotating equipment. From gearboxes and hydraulics to turbines and compressors, fluid analysis provides critical insight into asset health, helping teams identify contamination, degradation, and developing failures before they lead to costly downtime.

But what about the electrical assets that keep those same facilities running?

Transformers are among the most critical (and often least monitored) assets in many industrial and manufacturing environments. In these operating environments, a transformer failure can have significant consequences, including lost production, costly repairs, and unplanned outages. While many facilities actively monitor the condition of lubricated equipment, transformers are frequently overlooked until a problem occurs.

The reality is that transformer oil analysis applies the same condition-monitoring principles that reliability professionals have trusted for decades in lubricated systems.

Oil as a Diagnostic Tool

Just as lubricating oil provides valuable insight into the condition of a gearbox or hydraulic system, transformer oil serves as a diagnostic medium for electrical equipment.

Transformer oil performs two critical functions: 1) cooling internal components and 2) providing electrical insulation. Over time, moisture, contaminants, oxidation, and electrical stresses can affect both the fluid and the transformer itself. By routinely sampling, testing, and analyzing the oil, maintenance and reliability teams gain visibility into conditions that cannot be observed through visual inspection alone.

In many cases, changes in oil condition can provide early warning signs of developing issues long before they result in equipment failure or outages.

What Transformer Oil Testing Can Reveal

Routine transformer oil analysis can help identify a variety of conditions that impact reliability and performance.

Additional testing can reveal oxidation, contamination, and other signs of degradation that may impact transformer performance and longevity.

When trended over time, these results provide valuable information that supports proactive maintenance decisions and helps organizations move away from reactive maintenance.

Bringing Electrical Assets into the Reliability Program

Reliability teams have long used lubricant analysis as a cornerstone of condition-based maintenance. Extending that same approach to electrical assets creates a more complete, comprehensive picture of equipment health.

For many facilities, transformers represent a significant concentration of operational risk. A failure doesn’t just affect the transformer itself—it can impact entire production lines, utilities, and plant operations. By incorporating transformer oil analysis into an existing condition monitoring strategy, organizations can improve visibility into asset health and address issues before they escalate.

The result is a more proactive maintenance approach that helps:

• Detect developing problems earlier
• Reduce the risk of unplanned outages
• Improve asset reliability
• Support predictive maintenance, planning and scheduling
• Extend equipment life

Expanding Fluid Analysis Capabilities

Recognizing the importance of monitoring both mechanical and electrical assets, POLARIS Laboratories® is expanding its fluid analysis capabilities to include Transformer Oil Testing and Analysis.

The new offering is designed to help maintenance and reliability professionals apply the same proven condition-monitoring principles used for lubricants and hydraulic fluids to their critical electrical infrastructure. Testing may include evaluations such as moisture content, dielectric breakdown voltage, resistivity, dielectric properties, and other analyses that provide insight into both fluid condition and transformer health.

Looking Beyond Rotating Equipment

The most effective reliability programs are built on visibility. While rotating equipment often receives the majority of condition monitoring attention, electrical assets deserve the same proactive approach.

By expanding oil analysis from lubrication to insulation, organizations can gain critical insight into transformer condition, better protect essential electrical infrastructure, and strengthen overall facility reliability.

By William Gillette (LogiLube, LLC)

A hydraulic or turbine-oil system does not need to suffer a dramatic failure to begin losing performance. Sometimes the first warning is a valve that responds slightly too slowly, an unexplained increase in oil temperature or a filter that does not last as long as it once did.

A paper machine can be running at full production when a hydraulic valve begins responding a fraction of a second too slowly. A gas turbine may be technically available, yet hesitate during a critical start because a servo valve does not move freely. A hydraulic excavator can develop sluggish controls, elevated oil temperature and shortened filter life without producing a single obvious alarm.

In each case, the visible symptom may appear mechanical, electrical or operational. The underlying problem may be varnish or deposits in the lubricant.

Varnish cannot be compared to dirt entering the machine. It develops as the hydraulic fluid or turbine oil is subjected to heat, oxygen, pressure, aeration, electrostatic stress and repeated operating cycles. Antioxidants are gradually consumed, and oil-degradation products begin accumulating.

Some of these degradation products remain dissolved in the oil. Others circulate as soft, submicron contaminants. As the fluid passes through cooler areas, narrow clearances and low-flow regions, some of the material can leave solution and deposit on servo-valve spools, bearing surfaces, reservoir walls, heat exchangers and other internal components.

Figure 1: The three states of varnish

The result is a reliability threat that can remain largely invisible until the machine begins to feel its effects.

A problem that rarely announces itself directly

Varnish does not always produce a clear alarm.

Instead, maintenance teams may see recurring valve replacements, unexplained temperature increases, shortened filter life, unstable actuator response, difficult turbine starts or repeated oil changes. A paper machine may experience an intermittent hydraulic-control problem. A blast-hole drill may develop inconsistent feed or rotation control. A haul truck may require hydraulic troubleshooting far from the maintenance shop.

The organization treats the visible symptom, but the fluid continues generating the conditions that caused it.

Modern machinery can intensify the risk. Higher power density, smaller reservoirs, faster fluid turnover, tighter component clearances and higher operating temperatures place increasing stress on the oil. Even when viscosity and particle count remain within broad operating limits, the fluid’s antioxidant reserve may be depleting and deposit-forming degradation products may start accumulating.

Varnish is therefore not a simple yes-or-no contaminant. It is an evolving chemical condition.

Understanding that condition begins with oil analysis.

The traditional manual sampling workflow

Manual Sampling Workflow. The process is familiar, as shown in Figure 2:

• A sample is scheduled according to a calendar interval, operating hours or a preventive-maintenance route.
• A technician travels to the machine, confirms the asset and identifies the designated sampling point.
• The machine must be operating—or placed in an approved operating condition—that provides a representative circulating sample.
• The technician cleans the sampling area, flushes the valve, hose or dead-leg volume, and fills a clean sample bottle.
• The bottle is capped, labeled and entered into the site’s oil-analysis or maintenance-management system.
• The sample is packaged and transported to an onsite or offsite laboratory.
• The laboratory prepares the sample, performs the requested tests and reports the results.
• A reliability engineer or maintenance specialist reviews the report, compares it with previous samples and decides whether corrective action is required.

When properly executed, this workflow provides essential laboratory evidence. Manual sampling is not the problem.

The limitation is that the workflow only observes the fluid at isolated moments.

The sampling blind spot

A scheduled oil sample is a snapshot at that time of operation. The machine, however, operates continuously.

Between two manual samples, the system may experience a high-temperature event, a cooler malfunction, a difficult startup, severe hydraulic loading, water ingress, electrostatic discharge or another condition that accelerates oil degradation.

The event may last several hours or several days and then disappear before the next technician arrives.

Figure 3: The sampling blind spot

The sample collected later may still show some residual effect, but it may not reveal the complete severity, timing or operating context of the event. The laboratory sees the bottle. It does not automatically see what the machine was doing when the degradation occurred.

This interval between scheduled samples is the sampling blind spot. It has several dimensions.

The sampling blind spot does not mean laboratory testing is ineffective. It means laboratory testing needs a better trigger and more operating context.

What ASTM testing tells us about varnish risk

No single laboratory test describes the complete varnish condition of an oil. A strong monitoring program combines several tests that examine different stages of fluid degradation.

Table 1: ASTM tests and what they measure

RULER® analysis adds another important dimension to varnish monitoring by measuring the remaining antioxidant chemistry in the lubricant. The technology uses linear sweep voltammetry and is reflected in ASTM methods including D6810, D6971, D7527 and D7590, which address antioxidant measurement and depletion trending in different lubricant formulations.

Jo Ameye of Fluitec contributed to the development and industry standardization of RULER-based testing. When combined with ASTM D7843 Membrane Patch Colorimetry, of which Greg Livingstone was a contributor, RULER helps distinguish between two related conditions: the accumulation of insoluble, deposit-forming degradation products and the loss of the antioxidant protection intended to prevent their formation. Neither result should be interpreted alone; the greatest value comes from trending both measurements alongside viscosity, acid number, temperature history and other fluid-condition data.

ASTM D7843: Membrane Patch Colorimetry

ASTM D7843 is the principal standardized method associated with varnish-potential trending in in-service turbine oils.

The test extracts insoluble contaminants from the oil onto a membrane patch. A spectrophotometer measures the color of the patch and reports the result as a CIELAB ΔE value. ASTM describes the method as a guide to the formation of lubricant-generated insoluble deposits and specifies that it should be used as a condition-monitoring trend within a broader oil-analysis program. The current standard is ASTM D7843-25e1. It is not intended for turbine oils containing dyes.

MPC is valuable because very small quantities of dark, soft degradation material can produce a meaningful color response even when conventional particle counting does not fully characterize the condition.

However, MPC does not measure all dissolved degradation products, and one test result should not be treated as a universal condemnation limit. The trend, sample handling, operating condition and fluid formulation all matter.

ASTM D6971 and D6810: Remaining antioxidant content

Antioxidants help protect the base oil from thermal and oxidative degradation. As these additives are consumed, the fluid becomes less capable of resisting oxidation and varnish formation.

ASTM D6971 uses linear sweep voltammetry to measure remaining hindered phenolic and aromatic amine antioxidants in applicable non-zinc turbine oils. ASTM D6810 addresses hindered phenolic antioxidants in non-zinc turbine oils. These tests are commonly associated with RULER-type antioxidant analysis.

ASTM cautions that linear sweep voltammetry does not measure every chemical species contributing to the oil’s remaining useful life or its total oxidative stability. ASTM D7590 therefore emphasizes trending antioxidant depletion relative to a suitable baseline rather than relying only on an isolated absolute result.

Antioxidant testing tells the maintenance team something different from MPC:

• MPC helps indicate the presence of insoluble deposit-forming material.
• Voltammetry helps indicate how much of the original antioxidant protection remains.

A fluid can have declining antioxidant reserves before MPC rises sharply. Conversely, an oil can contain varnish-producing material even when some antioxidant reserve remains.

ASTM D2272: Oxidation stability

ASTM D2272, commonly known as RPVOT, evaluates the oxidation stability of steam-turbine oils using a rotating pressure vessel. The result is often compared with the new-oil baseline to understand how much oxidation resistance remains.

RPVOT is not a direct measurement of varnish deposits. It provides additional evidence about the fluid’s ability to resist further oxidation. This result is given in minutes, which is not as easy to correlate to the machine’s operation. Additionally, the RPVOT is not a repeatable test, as results of the same oil can vary.

Supporting fluid-health tests

Other ASTM methods help complete the picture:

• ASTM D664 measures acid number, which can support trending of acidic oxidation products (which usually occurs after oxidation has occurred).
• ASTM E2412 provides for trend analysis of in-service lubricants using FTIR spectroscopy and can support monitoring of general degradation patterns.
• ASTM D445 measures kinematic viscosity, helping confirm whether the oil remains within its required viscosity range.

Water, particulate contamination, air release, demulsibility and elemental analysis may also be important depending on the machine and oil formulation.

The key lesson is that varnish risk is best understood through multiple trends—not a single test or alarm.

Closing the blind spot

SmartOil G3™ Adaptive Dosing is designed to connect continuous machine monitoring with laboratory-grade fluid analysis.

A machine-mounted SmartOil G3 system continuously observes selected fluid properties and associates those measurements with oil temperature, operating hours, load and other machine conditions. The G3 Edge-AI Brain™ establishes a normal operating signature for the individual reservoir and identifies meaningful departures from that baseline.

The purpose is not to replace ASTM laboratory testing.

Figure 4: SmartOil G3™ Adaptive Dosing™ system – hydraulic oil

It is to determine when laboratory testing is most urgently needed.

When an unusual degradation pattern is detected, SmartOil G3 Exception Sampling™ can collect a representative sample while the machine is operating and the abnormal condition is occurring. The sample can then be analyzed using the appropriate ASTM methods and correlated with the sensor and operating data that triggered its collection.

Instead of receiving only a bottle, asset number and sampling date, the analyst gains a time-aligned record of the event.

That closes much of the traditional sampling blind spot.

From detection to controlled intervention

Once varnish risk has been confirmed, the G3 DOSE™ module can deliver controlled micro-doses of the appropriate varnish control additive formulation.

The objective is not simply to inject an additive. It is to maintain the hydraulic fluid or turbine oil inside an approved operating envelope.

The dosing decision can consider:

• Varnish-potential trend
• Antioxidant depletion
• Viscosity and dielectric behavior
• Temperature and load history
• Water and particulate condition
• Reservoir volume and oil makeup
• Previous treatment quantity
• Post-dose fluid response

A bounded dose is delivered, the fluid is allowed to circulate, and the system evaluates the response before any additional treatment is authorized.

This creates a fundamentally different varnish-control model:

Varnish will not always be visible before it affects machine performance. But the conditions that create varnish often leave measurable signals.

The challenge is capturing those signals before they disappear into the space between scheduled samples.

In Part 2, we examine how SmartOil G3™ turns multiple fluid and machine signals into a defensible dosing decision—and why the quality of that decision matters more than the number of sensors installed.

By Jorge Alarcon

From an economic perspective, the construction of new data centers responds to a structural need: digitalization, artificial intelligence, and massive data storage are steadily driving up demand for computing capacity. However, this growth is not neutral. Each new data center requires highly capital-intensive investment, along with access to land, connectivity and, above all, a stable electrical supply.

This means that, over the next 10 years, we will need not only more facilities but also more power generation, more grid infrastructure, and greater resilience across the energy system. In macroeconomic terms, the challenge will not be limited to building technological facilities; it will also require ensuring that electrical infrastructure grows at the same pace. Furthermore, a significant portion of that energy will not go to the servers themselves, but rather to keeping them within safe thermal ranges.

A Maintenance Reality, Not Just an IT Challenge

From an industrial maintenance standpoint, this reality completely changes the operational approach. A data center depends not only on servers and electrical systems, but also on a chain of auxiliary equipment that must operate continuously: pumps, heat exchangers, thermal treatment units, valves, sensors, and control systems. If any of these elements fail, the risk is significant: temperature rises, availability drops, and service continuity is compromised.

This is where the products that cool the cooling fluids become especially important, because in modern environments thermal management can no longer rely on air alone. Liquid circuits require coolants, dielectric fluids, or water-glycol blends that must retain their physical and chemical properties. To achieve this, maintenance must monitor degradation, contamination, corrosion, sludge formation, microbiological growth, and loss of heat-exchange capacity.

For this reason, maintaining is not just repairing it means analyzing, preventing, and ensuring the health of the thermal circuit. In practice, this involves periodic inspections, sampling, monitoring of pH, conductivity and inhibitors, and cleaning of heat exchangers. If the fluid loses performance, cooling loses margin, which in turn shortens hardware lifespan and increases the center’s energy consumption.

Cooling Fluids: A Strategic Component

In this context, cooling fluids are much more than a simple heat-transport medium. They are what allows thermal energy to be extracted from equipment and moved to a system where it can be safely dissipated. They may be treated as water, glycol blends, or fluids specially formulated for direct cooling, depending on the data center’s architecture and the required thermal density level.

Their technical value lies in the balance between heat capacity, chemical stability, material compatibility, and risk control. When these fluids are properly selected and maintained, the system operates with greater efficiency, less wear, and higher reliability. That is why, in the new generation of data centers, cooling is not a secondary subsystem: it is a strategic component of both business and operational availability.

The failure of these fluids does not simply mean that a replacement must be planned; it generally has a direct impact on the entire system, requiring maintenance intervention, parts replacement, and a shutdown — planned or unplanned — that can carry a high cost due to operational downtime.

There is a wide variety of cooling fluids used in these systems, but many of them share common failure modes. This article covers five of these main failure modes, as well as their impact on the systems.

The Five Failure Modes of Data Center Cooling Fluids

Technical Interpretation and Recommendations

In technical terms, the predominant failure is a progressive deactivation of the inhibitor package, with loss of buffering capacity and surface passivation, accompanied by incipient aeration that can accelerate oxidation and localized corrosion. The practical consequence is not only fluid aging, but a reduction in the cooled system’s safety margin against corrosion, cavitation, and loss of thermal performance.

Because analysis of this type of fluid is still in its early stages, only a handful of laboratories worldwide clearly understand these failure modes and how to detect incipient patterns before they occur — along with the associated costs, which can be substantial and directly impact operations and potentially the business’s capital expenditure, since a large part of the system may need to be replaced.

By Bob Kendall

When most people think about lubrication reliability, they picture what happens inside the machine.

Bearings. Hydraulic systems. Gears. Pumps. Injectors. Oil analysis reports.

But in reality, many lubrication failures begin long before the lubricant ever reaches the equipment.

They begin in storage rooms.

They begin with moisture intrusion, dirty transfer containers, neglected breathers, poor handling practices, unfiltered oil, and the dangerous assumption that “new oil” automatically means “clean oil.”

That assumption alone costs industry billions of dollars every year.

Over the years working around industrial lubrication programs, marine operations, mobile equipment, hydraulic systems, and manufacturing facilities throughout the Pacific Northwest, I’ve consistently seen the same pattern:

And contamination is patient.

It rarely destroys equipment overnight. Instead, it shortens component life slowly and consistently, one particle at a time, until downtime becomes accepted as normal operating behavior.

The Reliability Threat Most Facilities Never See

One of the biggest misconceptions in lubrication is the idea that if oil looks clean, it probably is clean.

Machines strongly disagree.

Modern hydraulic and lubrication systems operate with extremely tight tolerances. Many of the particles capable of damaging pumps, servo valves, bearings, injectors, and hydraulic components are completely invisible to the human eye.

A lubricant often appears perfectly clean while still carrying contamination levels high enough to accelerate internal wear significantly.

And that problem continues growing as manufacturers push higher operating pressures, tighter clearances, lower emissions requirements, and increasingly sensitive fuel and hydraulic systems.

Particle contamination remains one of the leading causes of lubrication and hydraulic system failures across industrial equipment today.

The challenge is that contamination rarely enters through one catastrophic event.

It enters through dozens of small ones:

• Dirty storage practices
• Open drum tops
• Condensation
• Poor transfer methods
• Damaged seals
• Missing desiccant breathers
• Unfiltered new oil
• Cross-contamination between lubricants
• Leaks pulling contamination into the system

Individually, these issues are often dismissed as minor.

Collectively, they destroy reliability.

New Oil Does Not Mean Clean Oil

This remains one of the hardest conversations to have outside the lubrication community.

Many people assume lubricant cleanliness is guaranteed once it leaves the supplier.

Unfortunately, that is not how the real world works.

Oil accumulates contamination throughout the entire supply chain: blending, transportation, storage, handling, dispensing, and transfer.

By the time lubricant finally reaches the equipment, it often already exceeds acceptable cleanliness targets for critical systems.

That is why world-class lubrication programs do not simply add oil.

They actively manage lubricant cleanliness from delivery all the way to application.

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to work alongside Chris Nation, STLE CLS, OMA I, ICML MLT I, General Manager of Guardian Reliability Services, seeing firsthand how contamination control and precision lubrication programs directly improve operational efficiency, reduce maintenance costs, extend equipment life, and increase uptime.

The results are measurable.

• Longer oil life
• Reduced component wear
• Fewer emergency failures
• Cleaner systems
• Lower maintenance costs
• More uptime

In today’s environment of volatile lubricant pricing, tighter budgets, and increasing pressure on maintenance departments, reliability practices are no longer optional operational improvements.

They are financial protection strategies.

Some of the highest ROI improvements I’ve personally seen are also some of the simplest:

• Sealed transfer containers
• Dedicated filtration systems
• Proper desiccant breathers
• Cleaner lube rooms
• Contamination control procedures
• Consistent oil analysis and condition monitoring

None of those improvements are flashy.

But they work.

As Chris Nation explained:

That perspective changes the entire conversation around lubrication.

Because once lubricants are viewed as active machine components instead of consumable products, priorities begin changing very quickly.

Suddenly: moisture control matters, filtration matters, breathers matter, transfer procedures matter, storage conditions matter, and contamination prevention becomes part of protecting the business itself.

Reliability Is Built in the Lube Room

The lubrication room is often treated like a storage closet.

In reality, it is a reliability control center.

The best operations I’ve seen all share a similar mindset:

A contaminated lubricant cannot properly separate surfaces, transfer heat, maintain hydraulic efficiency, or protect critical components from wear.

Once facilities truly understand that, the details stop looking small.

Because the cost of failure is never small.

The Hidden Cost of “Normal”

One of the most dangerous things in maintenance culture is normalization.

A leaking hydraulic hose becomes normal.

Frequent filter plugging becomes normal.

Repeated injector failures become normal.

Dirty reservoirs become normal.

Until eventually nobody asks why those conditions are being accepted in the first place.

The financial consequences can be enormous.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Operations & Maintenance Best Practices Guide, independent surveys indicate that functional predictive maintenance programs can reduce maintenance costs by 25–30% and eliminate 70–75% of equipment breakdowns.

Yet contamination-related problems are still ignored every day because they develop gradually rather than catastrophically.

That is what makes contamination so dangerous.

It rarely announces itself loudly in the beginning.

It quietly shortens equipment life until a major failure finally occurs, and by then the blame usually falls on the component instead of the conditions surrounding it.

Simplicity Still Wins

The lubrication industry has no shortage of technology, sensors, software platforms, diagnostics, and monitoring systems.

Many of those tools provide tremendous value.

But some of the most effective reliability improvements remain remarkably simple:

• Keep lubricants clean
• Keep lubricants dry
• Use the correct product
• Store it properly
• Deliver it properly
• Filter it properly
• Monitor it consistently
• Eliminate contamination pathways whenever possible

None of that advice is revolutionary.

But consistently applying those fundamentals is what separates reliability-focused organizations from reactive maintenance cultures.

Final Thoughts

Machines continue becoming more advanced every year.

But even the most sophisticated equipment in the world will not survive poor lubrication practices indefinitely.

In many facilities, reliability begins long before startup.

It begins with the systems, habits, standards, and culture surrounding lubricant storage, handling, filtration, contamination control, and maintenance discipline.

Because most lubrication failures are not sudden events.

They are slow-moving problems introduced long before the machine ever had a chance to defend itself.

The Role of MIR Measurement Engines in Next-Generation Oil Condition Monitoring

For many years, laboratory Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy has been regarded as a cornerstone analytical technique for oil condition monitoring. Its ability to provide high-resolution spectral information across the mid-infrared region makes it exceptionally valuable for lubricant diagnostics, chemical characterisation, research, and failure investigations.

FTIR’s strength lies in its ability to generate a comprehensive chemical fingerprint of a lubricant. It can provide valuable insight into oxidation products, water contamination, glycol ingress, soot formation, additive depletion, and many other chemical changes occurring within an oil sample. For applications where broad chemical understanding or identification of unknown contaminants is required, laboratory FTIR remains an essential analytical tool.

However, the requirements of continuous machinery health monitoring introduce a different set of analytical challenges. In these applications, the objective is not necessarily to fully characterise every molecular species present in a lubricant sample, but rather to provide accurate, stable, and repeatable measurements of specific condition indicators that support maintenance decisions and asset reliability strategies.

This shift in application focus changes how measurement performance should be evaluated.

Beyond spectral resolution alone, factors such as measurement stability, calibration robustness, sample consistency, response time, and the ability to obtain representative measurements directly from the operating lubricant become critical contributors to overall analytical accuracy.

Moving from Spectral Completeness to Measurement Optimisation

Many lubricant degradation mechanisms produce broad mid-infrared absorption features rather than highly resolved spectral signatures. Water, oxidation products, nitration compounds, sulphation species, and many additive chemistries exhibit characteristic absorption regions that can be effectively monitored through targeted MIR measurement approaches.

A MIR measurement engine is designed around this principle. Rather than acquiring a complete infrared spectrum and subsequently extracting relevant information from a large dataset, it focuses measurement capability on the spectral regions that demonstrate the strongest relationship with specific oil condition parameters.

The optical configuration, detector architecture, signal processing, calibration strategy, and chemometric models are all developed together for the purpose of predicting targeted lubricant parameters such as water contamination, oxidation progression, and additive degradation.

This application-specific design enables highly accurate and repeatable measurement performance for defined degradation indicators.

In practical condition monitoring applications, total measurement uncertainty is often influenced less by nominal spectral resolution and more by the complete analytical workflow: sensor stability, calibration robustness, environmental tolerance, sample presentation, and the ability to maintain consistent measurement conditions over long periods.

Performance Advantage Through Chemometric Model Optimisation

The performance advantage of MIR measurement engines should be considered specifically in the context of chemometrically derived parameters.

The comparison is not that MIR technology is universally superior to FTIR spectroscopy. Rather, a purpose-built MIR measurement system can achieve improved prediction accuracy and reduced measurement error for specific lubricant condition parameters through optimisation of the complete analytical process.

This advantage is driven by two fundamental factors.

It is important to recognise that FTIR itself is a measurement technology, while ASTM and DIN procedures represent reference analytical methodologies. These approaches should not be directly compared with chemometric prediction models. The appropriate comparison is therefore not between analytical techniques in general, but between the ability of different measurement approaches to accurately predict defined lubricant condition parameters.

Simplified Measurement Architecture and Robust Modelling

From a signal-processing perspective, a dedicated MIR measurement engine provides an opportunity to develop focused chemometric models based on the most relevant spectral information.

FTIR-based oil analysis frequently uses advanced multivariate techniques such as partial least squares regression to extract relationships from high-dimensional spectral datasets. These approaches are powerful and remain highly valuable where comprehensive chemical characterisation is required.

For continuous monitoring of known degradation mechanisms, however, a targeted MIR measurement approach allows the sensing architecture and prediction model to be developed together. The system is designed around the specific parameters being measured rather than adapting a general-purpose spectral measurement platform after data acquisition.

This can improve model transparency, simplify calibration management, and enhance long-term robustness in industrial environments.

Stability for Real-World Operating Conditions

Another important advantage of MIR measurement engines is their suitability for demanding industrial environments.

Continuous condition monitoring requires sensors that can operate reliably in engines, gearboxes, turbines, hydraulic systems, and other machinery where vibration, thermal cycling, contamination, and long operating periods are normal conditions.

Purpose-built MIR measurement engines use stable optical architectures designed for continuous operation. Reduced mechanical complexity and elimination of moving interferometric components can improve resistance to environmental influences and support long-term measurement consistency with minimal maintenance requirements.

For condition monitoring systems, this operational stability is often as important as the analytical capability itself.

The Importance of Real-Time Measurement

Perhaps the most significant distinction between laboratory analysis and inline monitoring is not optical—it is temporal.

Oil degradation is dynamic. Water ingress, oxidation progression, contamination events, and additive depletion develop continuously during machine operation.

Laboratory FTIR analysis provides highly valuable information, but it requires sampling, transport, preparation, and analysis before results become available. During this period, lubricant condition may continue to change, and the sample may experience variations caused by handling, storage, or environmental exposure.

MIR measurement engines address this challenge by analysing lubricant directly within the operating system and providing continuous condition information in real time.

This enables earlier detection of abnormal trends, improved understanding of degradation behaviour, and more informed maintenance decisions based on the actual operating condition of the machine.

Complementary Technologies for Different Analytical Needs

The evolution of MIR measurement engines does not diminish the importance of FTIR spectroscopy.

Laboratory FTIR remains indispensable for forensic analysis, lubricant development and root-cause investigations.

The distinction is therefore not about replacing one technology with another. It is about recognising that different analytical challenges require different measurement approaches.

Figure 1: MIR vs FTIR strengths and applications

The Future

The future of oil condition monitoring will not be defined solely by the amount of spectral information collected, but by how effectively measurement systems deliver reliable, actionable information under real operating conditions.

Beyond spectral resolution, factors such as measurement stability, sample consistency, calibration robustness, and chemometric model performance determine the practical value of a monitoring solution.

The post Beyond Spectral Resolution – The Role of MIR Measurement Engines in Next-Generation Oil Condition Monitoring appeared first on Precision Lubrication.

https://precisionlubrication.com/articles/lubricant-supply-chains-four-months-on/ Thu, 13 Aug 2026 17:35:37 +0000 https://precisionlubrication.com/?p=8769 ▶  Video Feature By Rafe Britton Back in April I published a video arguing that the lubricants industry was facing the most significant supply chain disruption of the modern era, and that readers had roughly 60 days to act. It was a big claim, and it drew a fairly even split of agreement and accusations […]

The post Four Months On: How Events in the Middle East are Shaping Lubricant Supply Chains appeared first on Precision Lubrication.

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▶  Video Feature

By Rafe Britton

Back in April I published a video arguing that the lubricants industry was facing the most significant supply chain disruption of the modern era, and that readers had roughly 60 days to act. It was a big claim, and it drew a fairly even split of agreement and accusations of scaremongering.

Four months later, I thought the honest thing to do was go back and mark my own homework. This video is that reckoning, plus an update on how much the picture has shifted since.

The short version of the backdrop: strikes on Iran in February closed the Strait of Hormuz, a corridor carrying around 20 million barrels a day and, for our industry, the primary export route for Gulf base oils, additives and finished lubricants. June’s ceasefire lasted about a week.

17%

Commercial transit through the Strait of Hormuz, relative to pre-crisis volume

+800%

Rise in marine insurance costs — where coverage can be obtained at all

44%

Of US Group 3 base oil supply sidelined, according to ILMA estimates

Some of my original calls held up. Allocation and rationing did begin in May, as predicted. The Korean refiners, well outside the conflict zone but dependent on Middle East crude, went into constrained runs. And the argument that there was no safe harbour, that you could not simply switch from mineral to synthetic, proved correct.

Others did not. I called Group 1 “ground zero” when Group 3 has been the epicentre, with ILMA estimating around 44% of US Group 3 supply sidelined. I missed refinery economics entirely, where diesel margins are quietly pulling feedstock away from base oil production. And I overstated the packaging constraint.

Most significantly, I was watching the wrong part of the map. Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline to Yanbu was the workaround that made Hormuz survivable, until recent strikes on Jazan, Yanbu and Abqaiq closed that door too. Yanbu is not just a crude terminal. It hosts a major Luberef base oil facility that was days from bringing a significant expansion online. Abqaiq is one of the world’s largest sources of byproduct sulphur, in a market already up 130% this year, and sulphur is the foundation of ZDDP, sulphurised EP additives and sulphonate detergents.

The video covers where base oils, additives and finished lubricant pricing sit today, why recovery has moved from 2026 to deep into 2027, and the practical levers available to lubricant users right now. I would rather be corrected than comfortable, so if your experience on the ground differs from mine, I want to hear it.

▶  WATCH THE VIDEO: Four Months On – Lubricant Supply Chains

Rafe Britton is a mechanical engineer and the host of Lubrication Explained.

Related Reading

• How Global Conflicts Drive Lubricant Prices and What You Can Do About It
• The Lubricants Myth: Why You’re Not Saving Money by Buying the Cheap Stuff
• Yes, Lubricants Have a Shelf Life Too. Here’s How to Extend It.
• Oil Consolidation Reimagined: The 5S Method for Smarter Lubrication Practices

The post Four Months On: How Events in the Middle East are Shaping Lubricant Supply Chains appeared first on Precision Lubrication.

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For many manufacturing facilities, grease analysis stops at appearance, consistency, or contamination checks. While these basic indicators are valuable, they often fail to explain why a grease-lubricated component is degrading — or how close it may be to failure. As reliability programs mature, advanced grease analysis techniques provide deeper insight into grease health, additive condition, and wear mechanisms that basic testing often falls short on.

Advanced grease analysis techniques provide deeper insight into grease health, additive condition, and wear mechanisms — helping reliability teams move from reactive decisions to confident, condition-based action.

Advanced testing focuses on separating and evaluating the degradation mechanisms of base oil, thickener, and additives independently — so maintenance teams can move from reactive decisions to informed, condition-based actions.

The Key Value of FTIR Is Trend-Based Interpretation

A single data point provides limited insight, but trending oxidation and additive depletion over time allows maintenance teams to predict remaining grease life and optimize regreasing intervals. A single spectrum tells you what is there. The trend tells you where it is going.

The Inflection Point RULER Identifies

RULER data helps identify the inflection point where grease condition can deteriorate quickly — often well before mechanical symptoms appear. Once antioxidants are depleted, the remaining service life collapses rapidly. RULER is the only test that provides advance warning of this transition.

FTIR and RULER answer different questions. FTIR tells you that oxidation is occurring. RULER tells you how much capacity remains to resist it. Used together, they define both where the grease is and how far it has left to go.

Over-Testing Is a Real Cost — And It Obscures What Matters

Applying the full test panel to every asset generates data volume without insight. The result is analysis paralysis, report fatigue, and missed signals on the assets that actually matter. The discipline is not in running more tests — it is in running the right tests on the right assets, consistently.

Matching Tests to Asset Profile

Sampling Quality Determines Data Quality

Generating reliable trending data depends on collecting consistent, repeatable, and truly representative grease samples. Inconsistent sampling methods or locations introduce variability that reduces the accuracy and value of results. Most laboratories provide specialized grease sampling kits and standardized instructions designed to ensure samples reflect in-service conditions. The integrity of the sample governs the integrity of every result that follows.

A Question Worth Asking Your Program

Is your current grease analysis program telling you what is happening inside the grease — or only confirming what you can already see from the outside?

Unfortunately, the lube room is the place where many failures can begin if the conditions are not appropriate. It should ideally be the first line of defense for our assets but is often overlooked. Typically, this is the starting point of the journey for any lubricant and if it carries contaminants then we are exponentially decreasing the life of our lubricated assets before they have a chance to operate in our facility. This article explores the ways in which we can reduce these effects and some areas of improvement for any lube room.

Addressing Contamination

The ISO 4406 test is one that the industry is very familiar with as it governs the cleanliness of the oil. Typically, every system / OEM has a targeted cleanliness level. But how does the cleanliness level actually impact the lubricant and its functions? It is often said that the industry runs on a film of oil that is between 1–10 microns. Essentially, that means that any particle which is larger than this range interrupts the film and can cause damage and wear to the components.

For those not familiar with ISO 4406, this quantifies the number of particles into three categories, ≥4μm / ≥6μm / ≥14μm particles per milliliter of fluid. Each category measures the quantity of particles that fit the size bracket and then these are translated to a scaled number. As such, the numbers represented are not the actual quantity of the particles of that size.

Table 1: ISO 4406 rating scale.

New oil delivery in container sizes between a pail or a truck load, the cleanliness value can be excellent. Sometimes these values can be as clean as ISO 16/14/11, but can also be quite poor. A 16/14/11 score is great, but perhaps our turbines or hydraulic systems particularly those with EHC systems require something more stringent (due to their tighter clearances) such as ISO 14/12/9. The table below shows a comparison of what that actually means as it relates to the number of particles in the oil for these ratings.

Table 2: Comparing new oil to Turbine oil specifications for EHC systems.

This ISO cleanliness level starts off from the entry of the “clean” lubricant into the plant. If we factor in drums which have been exposed to the atmosphere, dirty transfer containers which already contain contaminants or bad practices (leaving hoses open to the atmosphere), then the ISO contaminant ratings will significantly increase. This means we are literally pouring contaminants into our oils and our assets.

Thus far, we have only described the contaminants in the form of solid particles, but contaminants can also exist in the liquid form (fuel, water, other lubricants, process liquids) or gaseous form (air, process gases). These can all affect the lubricant either acting as catalysts or fouling the system.

The Unseen Failure Chain

When we think about starting from the lube room and tracing the chain of events which leads to failure, it will look similar to Figure 1 below.

Figure 1: Chain of failure events.

In this case, contaminants start off in the lube room, and they enter the equipment, wreak havoc and then lead to failure. During many failure investigations, the analyst stops at the physical root causes and can easily blame the component. Since they did not investigate further, they missed that the source of contamination actually came from the lube room and possibly bad storage and handling practices.

Mislabeling and Environmental Conditions

Thus far, we’ve spoken about the effects of mainly physical contamination but quite a number of things also happen in the lube room. One major aspect of compromise is proper labelling of the lubricants. Many times, technicians are in a rush to get their lube route underway and will often not double check that they have the correct lubricant for the application that they are working on. In these cases, they may have picked up the wrong lubricant which is not the appropriate viscosity or suited for the application either!

This can lead to incompatible lubricants being mixed causing a series of failures. It can also lead to incorrect viscosity being applied to the equipment causing wear and tear or efficiency losses. Additionally, if the wrong type of oil is used, this can also lead to severe bleaching of the additives out of the oil.

As such, we need to ensure that there are adequate labeling systems in place to minimize the occurrence of a mix up with the lubricants. Colour coding can also help as this reduces the errors of “picking up” the wrong dispensing container especially when our technicians are in a hurry.

The environment has a huge role to play regarding the integrity of lubricants. If lubricants are stored outside in drums, they have the tendency to collect rainwater. They can breathe and draw in this rainwater which gets collected at the top of the drum. This breathing action occurs due to changes in temperature such as the change from a bright sunny environment to a rainstorm. This introduces water into the oil and contaminates it before it reaches the equipment. Lubricants should be stored at controlled temperatures between 0–25°C and in a sheltered area.

The Ideal Lube Room

While many may think it is costly or impossible to transform their current lube room, there are a few low-cost adjustments which can be made to help reduce the initiation of failure in this area. As shown in Figure 2, these small changes can have big impacts on reducing the contaminants which get into the oils before they are added to the machines.

Figure 2: Strategies for an Ideal Lube Room.

If we were to think about this in terms of the cost of the failures for gearboxes or other critical pieces of equipment, the investment in these strategies to upgrade your lube room is minimal. When investigating your next failure, perform a full root cause analysis and determine whether it’s stemming from your lube room. Chances are that you have the opportunity to prevent a lot more failures than you would expect.