We are progressing from test methods that do not require any equipment (other the tools you need for sample collection) to those that require increasingly expensive tools. You can complete basic gross observations by relying on your eyes and nose. The physical tests I suggested in Part 10 require simple tools; including a magnetic stirring bar retriever, disposable syringes, filter pads and in-line filter holders. In this blog, I’ll discuss a couple of simple chemical tests. However, with one…

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Let’s get physical. In Part 9, I discussed some very easy gross observation tests you can use to determine the likelihood of substantial microbiological contamination (MC) in fuel tanks (nearly everything in this blog series applies to tanks of all sizes from power tool tanks (<1 gal) to refinery bulk storage tanks ( as large as 500,000 bbl).This post introduces a couple of very simple physical tests you can run on bottom samples to detect fuel system damage that might be related to…

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Beginning with this post, I’m moving into Phase 3 of this series. In the first five posts, I introduced the issues that make fuel system microbiology condition monitoring important.  In Part 6 through 8 I covered the foundational concepts of sampling and testing.  Now it’s time to talk about actual test methods. The take home lesson here is that you can detect microbial contamination without having a lot of technical training or investing in expensive laboratory…

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STP spill containment well.  Good news: well has a 4 inch port for testing bottoms-water height and collecting bottoms samples.  Bad News: there is lots of corrosion.

The canary in the coal mine….
In my last post, I discussed the kinds of questions that should be asked before deciding on what tests to run and how frequently to run them.  Now I’ll share my condition monitoring (CM) philosophy with you. I’ll list them as axioms – statements that should seem obvious…

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How do we select condition monitoring tests?

Parts 3 and 4 of this series introduced the issue of test method selection. Starting with Part 7, I’ll spend the next few posts drilling down into different testing options when you want to evaluate fuel system microbiological contamination.
Today let’s start with two questions. These are the two questions that should drive most predictive maintenance test…

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