Grease Analysis—Essential for Manufacturing Robotics

Grease analysis in terms of robotics involves evaluating the condition of lubricating grease used in components such as joints, bearings, and gears. It helps maximize performance, extend the lifespan of robotics, and prevent unplanned downtime.​

Grease analysis details the condition of the grease without requiring a full grease change. This allows operators to delay costly changes until they are warranted. Proactive analysis also provides early warning of abnormal conditions in components, avoiding catastrophic failure.

While healthy grease is important in many applications, it is particularly important for robotics for the following reasons:

• Friction Reduction: Robotic joints and gears experience continuous motion (sometimes high speed, sometimes slow but with high-torque). Grease reduces friction at the contact surfaces, which directly impacts efficiency and precision.
• Wear Prevention: Metal-to-metal contact under load causes wear. The thick film formed by a properly selected grease protects surfaces from premature damage.
• Heat Dissipation: Over time, excessive friction and rapid movement can generate heat. Grease helps carry away and dissipate this heat, protecting parts from thermal damage.
• Contamination Protection: Grease can serve as a protective barrier, keeping dirt, dust, and other contaminants out of critical contact areas and sealing surfaces from corrosion.

Eurofins TestOil offers multi-faceted grease analysis to detect wear particles, contaminants and additives for in-service greases, centered on the following four tests.

• Elemental Spectroscopy: By monitoring wear metals such as iron, copper, tin and lead, rates of wear can be observed and abnormal wear modes can be detected. Many contaminants also have metallic components which can be monitored. Increases in contaminant metals such as silicon, aluminum and potassium can indicate ingression of dirt, coolant or process contaminants. Some additives also have metallic components. Monitoring additive metals can indicate when an incorrect grease has been added to a system.
• Ferrous Wear Concentration: This test quantifies the ferrous content of grease and is a primary indicator of wear. Measuring and tracking the amount of ferrous wear debris present in the grease can indicate overall machine condition.
• Karl Fischer Water-ASTM D6304C: This test quantifies dissolved, emulsified and free water and is accurate to 0.001%. Results are reported as either percent water or parts-per-million (ppm).
• Analytical Ferrography (optional): This test separates solid contamination and wear debris from a lubricant for microscopic evaluation. Analytical Ferrography can identify wear particles, their composition, and their origin by visually analyzing them microscopically.

Obtaining a representative grease sample with as little disruption as possible is essential for effective analysis. Eurofins TestOil Field Services professionals can help with sampling.

Through regular analysis with a quality lab, robotics engineers and technicians can optimize performance, reduce downtime, and extend the life of critical components.

For more information on working with Eurofins TestOil for grease analysis, oil analysis, or training opportunities, fill out the form below; visit https://testoil.com/company/contact-us/; call 216-251-2510; or email sales@testoil.com.

About Eurofins TestOil

With more than 30 years of experience in the oil analysis industry, Eurofins TestOil focuses exclusively on assisting industrial facilities with reducing maintenance costs and avoiding unexpected downtime through oil and fuel analysis program implementation. As industry experts in diagnosing oil-related issues in equipment such as turbines, hydraulics, gearboxes, pumps, compressors and diesel generators, Eurofins TestOil provides customers with same-day turnaround on routine oil analysis testing.  For more information on partnering with Eurofins TestOil on oil analysis programs or training opportunities visit https://testoil.com. Contact: Al Yates 216-251-2510; sales@testoil.com. 

About Eurofins – the global leader in bio-analysis

Eurofins is Testing for Life. Eurofins is the global leader in food, environment, pharmaceutical and cosmetic product testing, and in discovery pharmacology, forensics, advanced material sciences and agroscience Contract Research services. Eurofins is also a market leader in certain testing and laboratory services for genomics, and in the support of clinical studies, as well as in BioPharma Contract Development and Manufacturing. The Group also has a rapidly developing presence in highly specialised and molecular clinical diagnostic testing and in-vitro diagnostic products.

With over 61,000 staff across a network of 940 laboratories in 59 countries, Eurofins’ companies offer a portfolio of over 200,000 analytical methods. Eurofins Shares are listed on Euronext Paris Stock Exchange.