Bearing Failure Because of Lubricant Contamination

NOTHING IS MORE TERRIBLE THAN TO SEE IGNORANCE IN ACTION

More than 15% of bearing failures are due to Contaminations in the lubricant and OIL lubrication contributes more compared to grease.
Most oil lubricated bearings have either sump type Dip lubrication for non- critical applications and Oil circulations systems for critical applications with fully automated systems having main and standby pumps, duplex filters, heat exchangers, flow & pressure monitoring to ensure the bearings are always lubricated 100% with safety in place.

One such critical bearing application 750mm ID running at 35 rpm with oil lubrication was showing bearing defect while conducting Ultrasound inspection and advised for immediate physical inspection.

Based on our advice the bearing was removed from the equipment and physical inspection revealed a CRACK in one of the bearing roller. On inspection we found the roller crack was due to bearing splitting hard particles caused contamination bruising from the debris which got circulated in the oil, passed between the roller and bearing raceways and the end failure result was surface initiated fatigue crack and if further this bearing was allowed to run for few more days, the cracked roller will open up suddenly without warning leading to a catastrophic failure.

Once the failure reason was known it was easy to track and identify the contamination and found few metal particles trapped in the magnetic plug but it was too late as the damage was already done to the bearings and no other option is left other than changing the bearing.

Bearing failure due to Contamination is like a slow poison and early detection can save your equipment but not the bearing. Once damaged occurred cannot be rectified and NO LOOKING BACK.

Never allow contamination enter the bearings. NO correction NO rectification possible once the damage is done.