The lubricating oil used in honing applications is often contaminated with a large amount of problematic particulate matter. At a truck manufacturing plant, the amount of contaminant particles in the oil was causing serious issues. The manufacturer was faced with rising costs for keeping the operation running. Replacement of the oil and the filters was proving expensive and problematic, and lead to drops in efficiency.
The customer wanted to find ways to reduce their filter and oil change frequency, decrease manufacturing costs and maintain the quality of the oil for extended periods.
Testing at SKF RecondOil’s pilot plant
SKF RecondOil performed oil regeneration tests with Double Separation Technology (DST) oil regeneration systems. The honing oil discharged from the truck manufacturer's application's filter system was treated with DST to test viability of regeneration.
The honing oil had strict quality and cleanliness standards to meet. If the desired results could be reliably produced then efficiency at the plant and lowered manufacturing costs could be expected. In order to ensure oil quality and repeatability, the test was initially conducted at RecondOil’s pilot plant.
Integrated or stand alone technology
Double Separation Technology can be applied in two different ways: either integrated into an applications oil circulation, or through stand-alone machinery. In the truck manufacturers case, it was determined that the honing oil could be regenerated with both methods.
Overall analysis showed that it was possible to remove 99.9% of particulate contamination with DST treatment, bringing the oil down to incredible cleanliness levels.
The results were quantified with ISO codes, a standardized method of measuring oil cleanliness. They showed that the honing oils contamination levels were lowered from 22/21/16/13 to 12/10/7/6. This meant a reduction from 20,000-40,000 particles per milliliter down to to only 20-40 particles per milliliter.
Conclusion
The pilot study showed that regeneration of the truck manufacturers honing oil was viable, and with great results. The conclusion, in theory, is that if the manufacturer were to install an integrated DST system in the honing application, a constantly clean honing oil could be attained. This would minimize oil and filter purchase costs as well as reduce the labor and time taken to replace them.