Image based portable wear debris analysis tool

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to show the development of an image processing-based portable equipment for an automatic wear debris analysis. It can analyze both the qualitative and quantitative features of machine wear debris: size, quantity, size distribution, shape, surface texture and material composition via color.

Design/methodology/approach

It comprises hardware and software components which can take debris in near real-time from a machine oil sump and process it for features diagnosis. This processing provides the information of the basic features on the user screen which can further be used for machine component health diagnosis.

Findings

The developed system has the capacity to replace the existing off-line methods due to its cost effectiveness and simplicity in operation. The system is able to analyze debris basic quantitative and qualitative features greater than 50 micron and less than 300 micron.

Originality/value

Wear debris basic features analysis tool is developed and discussed. The portable and near real-time analysis offered by the discussed work can be more technically effective as compared to the existing off-line and online techniques.

Citation

Khan, M.A., Cheema, A.F., Khan, S.Z. and Qureshi, S.-u. (2015), "Image based portable wear debris analysis tool", Industrial Lubrication and Tribology, Vol. 67 No. 4, pp. 389-398. https://doi.org/10.1108/ILT-11-2014-0127