In Situ Oil Analysis in Real Time

飞机、船舶和重型工厂设备等高价值油润滑机械的所有者和运营商投入了大量精力和资金，通过对润滑剂和运动部件的状态监测来确保机器的健康。关键系统因摩擦磨损而发生故障可能导致死亡（例如，由于飞机系统故障）和/或经济损失（例如，由于采矿/挖掘设备故障或退化）。非最佳操作还可能导致机器寿命缩短、部件过早失效、环境破坏和效率降低。确保高效运行将提高机械效率，从而减少燃料使用和污染。传统上，设备中的油样品会定期送到实验室进行分析（例如通过X射线荧光光谱法），以查看润滑剂是否降解或是否存在摩擦磨损迹象（如油中的金属颗粒）。然而，这在采样之间留下了一段时间，机器及其润滑剂的状况是未知的。对于某些关键应用，如直升机齿轮箱，基本的监测是通过车上的仪器进行连续监测，但仪器远不如专用实验室先进，仍然需要定期离线采样。我们的经营理念是开发化合物半导体传感器，最先进的实验室质量X射线荧光监测润滑剂和机械状况的现场，在真实的时间，提供持续的高质量数据的健康的重要石油润滑设备。

The owners and operators of high value oil lubricated machinery such as aircraft, ships and heavy plant equipment put much effort and money into ensuring the health of their machines through condition monitoring of their lubricants and moving parts. Failure of critical systems through tribological wear can result in death (e.g. as a result of aircraft systems failures) and/or financial loss (e.g. as a result of failure or degradation of mining/excavation equipment). Non-optimum operation can also cause reduced machinery lifetime and premature component failure, environmental damage and reduced efficiency. Ensuring efficient operation would increase mechanical efficiency thereby reducing fuel use and pollution.Traditionally, samples of oil from the equipment are regularly sent to laboratories for analysis (e.g. by X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy) to see if the lubricant is degrading or if there are signs of tribological wear (as evidenced by metallic particles in the oil). However, this leaves a period between sampling where the conditions of the machinery and its lubricant are unknown. For some critical applications, such as helicopter gear boxes, basic monitoring is carried out continuously by instrumentation aboard the vehicle, but the instrumentation is far less advanced than that available in a dedicated laboratory, and regular offline sampling is still required.Our business idea is to develop compound semiconductor sensors to enable continuous, state of the art laboratory-quality X-ray fluorescence monitoring of lubricant and machinery condition in situ, in real time, to provide constant high-quality data on the health of important oil lubricated equipment.