Innovative sensor for the detection of early stage of degradation of gas engines

Gas engines operate at extreme conditions and its lubricant is also affected by these extreme conditions; high temperatures and pressures or exigent operation cycles. 

The establishment of proper oil change strategy, and the early identification of failures could be solved by the use of real time continuous monitoring sensors.

Atten2, Advanced monitoring technologies, with the collaboration of IK4-Tekniker has developed an innovative sensor system in order to monitor the degradation process of gas engines lubricants paying special attention to the detection of early stages of degradation. The sensor determines the degradation process of the lubricant oil sample by detecting the variation of the absorbance intensity in several bands with respect to the reference oil.

Some real gas engine oil samples have been analyzed by the laboratory and compared by the sensor in order to validate the technology. This job will show the correlation of sensor information with the main laboratory parameters paying special attention to the degradation process parameters like Base Number BN or Varnish generation (patch analysis) which is one of the most critical problem in this type of machinery.