Grease compatibility Why it’s important for your machinery


Farnborough, UK-based Robert Belcher Lubrication Engineer at Intertek, a leading Total Quality Assurance provider to industries worldwide, explains how appropriate testing can help the transition from one grease to another.


Introduction


For operators of equipment that use grease, life is often simpler if the user can use the same, single type of grease throughout the lifetime of the equipment. However on many occasions this may not be possible – for example, when:


• The grease in service is no longer available • Replacing the in-service grease with another to improve efficiency or performance


• Replacing the in-service grease with a more cost-effective alternative grease


Why is it an issue? These questions are not unique to grease; operators using lubricating oils are faced with the same issues. However, whereas for oils, the replacement of one oil for another is a


50 LUBE MAGAZINE NO.138 APRIL 2017


relatively straightforward procedure, greases are much more difficult to swap over. The reason for this is why grease is chosen for the application ahead of a lubricating oil in the first place: grease remains in place and remains adhered to the working surfaces being protected.


While this remains a positive when selecting grease over lubricating oils, when a situation arises where an operator has to switch to another grease product this can bring about the issue of grease compatibility.


What would happen if it went wrong? When replacing one grease with another, maintenance operators are advised to remove as much of the old grease as possible. However, it’s usually not viable to remove all traces of the old grease before packing with the new grease, and so the question then becomes one of compatibility between the two greases.


Continued on page 52


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