Oil Analysis

Some plants have oil-sample analysis done on oil samples taken from oil drains on their turbomachinery packages. Metallic particulate content is trended for a clue as to what problems may occur. For instance, rising content of babitt may indicate bearing wear and/or incipient bearing failure. The problem of using this technique with rotating machinery is that most of this machinery turns so fast, the machine may fail between sampling analyses. Oil analysis has a far better chance of detecting deterioration in slower reciprocating machines, provided the samples are analyzed expeditiously.

Oil Sands; Synthetic Crude; Tar Sands; Shale

Oil sands and tar sands are synonyms for the same material. Synthetic crude results from processing oil sands. Shale is similar to oil sand in that it is a category of soil/rock that contains oil that can be extracted.

Certain areas of the world have large deposits of oil sands (northern Alberta, Canada) or shale (China and the United States) that oil can be extracted from, either by mining the soil and processing it or directing leaching steam into the ground. The latter process recovers only about 60 percent of the oil. The former process can recover more oil but is expensive to design and build because of the high level of corrosion and erosion problems experienced.

This technology is significant to process engineers in that it provides useful information on what equipment can survive the harshness of this process: such equipment would be suitable for similarly demanding processes elsewhere. Figure...