Particularly for OEMs, it is important to be able to transition the product from the lab to the testing phase, then into the field. In the lab, they can control the operating conditions, study the air intake and release, dispersion and formulation effects. Afterwards, they can relate bubble behaviour to operating conditions, design changes and system response. Finally, they can execute in the field and track the changes over time to support any root cause analysis for the future and confirm improvements. This is a movement from controlled conditions in the lab to dynamic conditions in testing to finally real-world conditions in the field.
Typically, conventional sensors will give parameters such as a change in dielectricity, a foam tendency, some noise or vibration and an oil condition change just as a result, without knowing the root cause. However, with Deepfluid, they are able to actually make physical behaviour visible and directly explainable. The size and shape of a bubble can be seen, classified and quantified. This allows for the actual oil-air contact surface area to be determined, and this can be trended over time to establish patterns.
What Recurring Patterns Can Bubble-Level Data Reveal?
Direct optical measurement does not identify a root cause on its own. Its practical value lies in revealing repeatable physical patterns that can be compared with operating conditions, representative baselines, and similar systems.
Examples include:
- An increasing population of small bubbles under steady load may be consistent with continuous air ingress or churning.
- Recurring air-content spikes synchronized with pump starts, pressure drops, or speed changes may point to an event-related source of Air Intake.
- A shift toward larger bubbles following a load or pressure transition may reflect bubble expansion, coalescence, or the beginning of Air Release.
- A slow return to baseline after an operating event indicates that air remains retained in the fluid-system combination or is released only gradually.
- Similar Air Content with different bubble-size distributions, bubble counts, or oil-air interfacial areas shows that the physical state of the dispersion is not necessarily the same.
- Different AIR profiles under comparable operating conditions can help distinguish normal system behavior from a machine-, component-, or environment-specific deviation.
Before-and-after measurements add another practical dimension. By repeating the same operating cycle after a change to a seal, reservoir, component, fluid, or control strategy, engineers can verify whether the intervention altered Air Intake, Retention, or Release behavior.
These observations should be treated as investigation signals rather than automatic diagnoses. Their meaning becomes clearer when bubble-level evidence is evaluated together with pressure, temperature, load, speed, flow, vibration, noise, and a representative baseline.
Find out more in the full article, "From Lab Insight to Field Action: How Air-in-Oil Diagnostics can support better Troubleshooting" featured in Precision Lubrication Magazine by Sanya Mathura, CEO & Founder of Strategic Reliability Solutions Ltd, David Placzek, Dr. Lukas Hafner
