Cooling Tower Lubrication

Improving Access and Reliability

Routine lubrication becomes much harder to manage when bearings and lubrication points are difficult to reach.

Cooling tower assets can be a good example. Access restrictions can make regular greasing, inspection and oil sampling more time-consuming, creating practical barriers to carrying out maintenance consistently.

Rather than accepting poor accessibility as part of the job, AVT Reliability worked with a customer to improve the maintainability of the equipment by introducing engineered remote lubrication and sampling points.

When access becomes a reliability problem

Good lubrication practice depends on being able to carry out the right maintenance activity at the right time.

Where a lubrication point is difficult to access, seemingly simple tasks can become unnecessarily complicated.

That can affect:

• routine greasing
• lubricant condition checks
• oil sampling
• visual inspection
• consistency of maintenance activity
• the time required to complete planned work

Accessibility therefore becomes more than a convenience issue. It can influence how effectively the lubrication programme itself is carried out.

For cooling tower lubrication, where equipment may be located in awkward or restricted positions, this can be particularly relevant.

Engineering easier access to lubrication points

The solution was to bring key maintenance points to a more accessible location.

Remote lubrication points were introduced so routine greasing could be carried out without requiring direct access to the original bearing location.

Oil sampling points were also incorporated, allowing lubricant samples to be collected more easily as part of the ongoing condition-monitoring programme.

The principle is simple: if a maintenance activity is important, the equipment should be designed or modified so that the activity can be carried out safely, consistently and with minimal unnecessary disruption.

Why remote lubrication points can help

Remote lubrication is not simply about making an engineer’s job easier.

Improved accessibility can support more consistent maintenance because routine tasks are less dependent on gaining physical access to difficult areas.

That can help teams maintain appropriate lubrication intervals and reduce the temptation to postpone or simplify tasks because access is inconvenient.

It can also help create more repeatable maintenance practices, particularly where several engineers may be responsible for the same equipment over its operating life.

Improving oil sampling at the same time

Lubrication condition cannot be judged from greasing activity alone.

Oil sampling can provide important information about lubricant condition, contamination and developing wear.

But the quality of the result depends partly on the quality and consistency of the sample.

A properly positioned sampling point can make it easier to obtain representative samples using the same method and location each time.

That improves the usefulness of trending because changes in laboratory results are less likely to be influenced by inconsistent sampling practice.

Maintainability should be part of reliability engineering

Maintenance difficulties are often treated as operational inconveniences rather than engineering problems.

That misses an opportunity.

If an asset repeatedly requires difficult access, excessive intervention or awkward workarounds to complete routine maintenance, there may be value in changing the equipment or maintenance arrangement itself.

This is where reliability engineering and lubrication management overlap.

Instead of asking maintenance teams to repeatedly work around an inconvenient design, the better question can be:

Can the asset be modified so the correct maintenance task becomes easier to perform?

Remote lubrication and sampling points are relatively straightforward examples of that principle.

Better access supports better maintenance

A strong lubrication programme depends on more than choosing the correct lubricant.

It also depends on storage, handling, application, sampling, inspection and the practical ability to perform each task consistently.

For inaccessible cooling tower assets, improving access to lubrication and sampling points can therefore support both maintainability and condition monitoring.

AVT Reliability’s Lubrication Services combine practical engineering improvements with lubricant management, analysis and condition-monitoring support to help customers build more effective maintenance programmes.