Reliability Matters – 1.8 – Equipment Lubrication Using Acoustic Ultrasound

What Can We Learn from Bearings using Acoustic Ultrasound?

Acoustical Ultrasound is the very first tool that can be used to detect a mode of failure with bearings.

There are three “notification” levels of acoustical noise (also called alarm ceilings) that can be generated by a bearing. Each of the three decibel signal levels provide an indication as to what the bearing needs to make it happy.

What Will Monitoring and Trending Decibel Levels in a Bearing Tell Us?

A notification level of 8dB above base line will be the bearing
telling you that you need more lubricant.

A notification level of 16dB above base
line will be the bearing telling you that it is
damaged with a failure mode that is
beyond greasing alone.

A notification level of 32dB above base line will be the
bearing telling you that it is in critical condition and near
death.

Health Check Activity

80% of premature bearing failures can be traced to a problem with lubrication.

Manual lubrication is manpower intensive and without the assistance of an acoustical ultrasound sensor offers unpredictable results that can affect equipment operation and energy costs.

Today, analog and digital acoustical lubrication systems are available. IoT and SMART lubrication systems are available that can interface with auto lubrication hardware and provide status and performance data to a smart phone or other monitoring program.

Can we help you with your system or give you a demonstration?

DTM Consulting Services is a company of equipment reliability technical specialists. We are available to answer your questions