FLUID ANALYSIS: A BIT OF HISTORY

Oil and oil additive manufacturers started using oil and fuel analyses in the 1930s to perfect products in bench testing or road testing.
It was not until the 40s that the technique was used for preventive and conditional maintenance.
The first industry to use it for maintenance was rail, for its rolling stock, when steam gradually gave way to electro-diesel. The DRGW (Denver Rio Great Western Railway) in the USA set up a monitoring programme based on the technique in 1941.
The programme included physical and chemical analyses and spark spectrometry.

The aeronautical industry was the next to set up maintenance programmes based on oil analysis to detect faults in turbomachinery (Garett, Rolls Royce, etc.) and rotation units in helicopters in the 1950s.
It was at this time that all oil manufacturers began using the technique, mainly for product development purposes.
All three American armed forces set up monitoring programmes which were merged into a common structure in 1975 (JOAP - Joint Oil Analysis Program).
In 1970, Caterpillar began offering its customers a service called SOS initially based on Atomic Absorption spectrometry.

In Europe, the Belgian Royal Military School in relation with the SNCB (Belgian railways) and IFP in France worked together on the STAIN TEST to ascertain the rate of soot and residual dispersion capacity in the framework of research into the behaviour of early multi-grade oils.
The work at IFP was published in July 1958 by A. Schilling, B. Bernelin and Claude Fosse.
Having noticed the interest expressed by the public transport and freight industries in an engine monitoring service based on this technique, in 1962 Claude Fosse set up a structure completely independent of oil manufacturers - called STM (technical engine monitoring) - which was one of the first laboratories in Europe to offer this service to industry. In the 1990s, this company became ST2M (technical engine and machinery monitoring) and finally IESPM in 2003.

At the same time in America, Edward Forgeron set up the independent structure Analyst.

In the 1970s, the technique was extended to all types of lubricant and equipment: hydraulic, compressors, etc. and all industries.

Both machinery and techniques have evolved over the years, along with the technical constraints of equipment.
With the computing power currently available, it is now possible to ensure observations are reliable, process results practically in real time and even set up Wear Prediction programmes.