Oleum Oracle®

Oleum Oracle® is an integrated hardware and software product based on microfluidic lab-on-a-chip technology. It is an oil condition monitoring device for businesses looking to identify developing faults in their lubricated rotating/reciprocating equipment, optimize their equipment maintenance and prolong the lifespan of their lube oils/machinery. With the Oleum Oracle® , businesses can accurately monitor the health of their oil in real-time, giving users valuable insights into the condition of their equipment.

Measurements made:

  • Insolubles (%) – Total insoluble and soot content in oil
  • TAN (mgKOH/g) – Measurement of Acid content in oil
  • TBN (mgKOH/g) – Measurement of Alkaline reserve in oil
  • Viscosity (cSt) – Resistance to flow
  • Iron Content (ppm) – Measure of Iron due to corrosion and abrasion
  • Additive Depletion – Remaining life of oil
  • Fuel Dilution – Fuel ingress in lubrication system

These parameters capture three failure modes:

  • Contamination
  • Degradation
  • Wear

Benefits

Speed

  • Real-time lube oil analysis

Convenience

  • On board/onsite measurements
  • Data integration with existing maintenance system

Actionable Insights

  • Lube oil condition trending
  • Identify three failure mode of degradation, contamination, and wear
  • Early diagnosis of engine deterioration

Functionality

  • Enable condition-based maintenance (CbM) and predictive maintenance (PdM)
  • Avoid sample cross contamination associated with sending samples to labs.

Environmental Impact

  • Lowers carbon footprint by 70% compared to traditional send-sample-to-laboratory approach
  • Reduced sample and solvent use by 98%

Key Features

  • Semi-automation and digitisation of the oil condition monitoring process
  • Real-time actionable machine condition insights for real- time decision making
  • Cloud analytics platform for remote data visualisation and predictive analysis
  • Microlitre volume of sample and solvents
  • Field deployable portable instrument

How It Works

Comparison With Lab Analysis

The RAB-Microfluidics Oleum Oracle® instrument produces chemical composition data for key parameters in lubricating oil that correlate highly with standard methods used in conventional laboratories. The results produced are highly accurate and precise.

Marine Vessel Case Study

The results of a case study where we monitor two main diesel engines in a marine vessel, shows Oleum Oracle® can track the change in components of the engines over their time of operation.

Oleum Oracle® monitored the portside and starboard 4-stroke engines of a marine vessel in over 430 hours of vessel operation and revealed issues with sudden acid enrichment in the portside engine compared to the starboard engine (see graph above).

These kind of data are illuminating to engineers and asset managers. Reliability engineers can begin to change the way they manage and operate their machinery in real-time. For instance, in this case study, the engineer can switch operation to the starboard engine while investigating the portside engine to avoid a catastrophic failure. Also, maintenance can then be planned in advance of this developing fault.

Product Sheet

Product Use Case Sheet