EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF ADDITION OF METAL CONDITIONERS AT GREASE FOR BEARINGS LUBRICATION

Marcos Vieira de Albuquerque¹; Jorge Nei Brito¹

¹ Federal University of São João del-Rei (UFSJ)

doi:10.20906/CPS/COB-2015-2438

Resumo

Currently the industries intend to decrease the corrective maintenance costs and to increase the equipment's life, so is increasing investments on predictive and preventive maintenance techniques, mainly in equipment, which the production line depends on directly. However, something unexpected can happen. Equipment may require maintenance that was not programmed/planned, committing the maintenance planning/programming and involving extras costs. Bearings are one of machine's components more analyzed by predictive techniques and were object of study of this paper. The objective of this paper is to compare vibration levels of bearings (with some defect) when is added Metal Conditioners (MC) in semisynthetic grease used for lubrication, from Vibration Analysis (Envelope) and Thermometry Analysis. A tests device with three bearings was designed and built to verify the vibration and operation temperature behavior when the bearings are lubricated with grease and grease + MC. Later the bearings were completely clean and tested without lubricant. Then, the bearings were substituted by a new group without defects (new and identical). The Experimental tests results show the addition of MC in grease decreased the levels of vibrations and bearings' operation temperature. Amplitudes of bearings' frequencies presented little variation, but the Global Vibration (gE) and the temperature presented satisfactory decreases. The tests without lubrication proved that Metal Conditioner adhere to metallic surfaces, reducing friction. The new bearings' test was essential to compare the severity of defective bearings and to show that tests device did not influence the other tests results previous. Metal Conditioners are efficient and can be considered a good alternative to prolong bearings' life and an interesting option for the planning/programming of maintenance of equipment, ensuring the production.

Palavras-chave: Metal Conditioner; Thermometry Analysis; Bearing; Vibration Analysis