Analysis of ISO VG 68 bearing oil for condition monitoring collected from an externally pressurized ball bearing system

Abstract Condition of the lubricating oil can be monitored by adopting advance techniques such as oil analysis, ferrography and wear particle under a microscope. Present study has been performed to study the condition of ISO VG 68 grade bearing oil in an externally pressurized ball bearing system using ferrography and shown various results with different analysis. The obtained results show the significance of the ferrography in condition monitoring. At higher running time, the wear was abnormal due to onset of severe wear of the ball bearing system. Due to continuous addition of the wear particles in the lubricating oil, the viscosity of the oil was increased by 18% after 40 h of operation. Direct reading ferrography of the oil samples shown that the wear was abnormal after 30 h of operation. However, analytical ferrography results found that the average particle size was increased with running time and found to be maximum, i.e., 1.18 µm at 40 h.