Onboard test kit to identify cold corrosion

The company says that previously the focus for onboard testing was on mechanical/abrasive wear, but now, with increased acid build-up in the engine resulting from several factors, including higher combustion pressures, reduced engine speed, longer piston stroke and sulphur in fuel, exacerbated by operating practices like slow steaming, tests need to identify acidic corrosion, often referred to as cold corrosion.

CM Technologies has developed a cylinder drain oil test kit to detect corrosive and abrasive wear at an early stage, allowing early preventative measures to be taken. The cylinder drain oil combined iron/BN test kit provides data on four parameters:

• Mechanical / abrasive wear;
• Corrosive wear;
• Alkalinity reserve (BN); and
• Insolubles, i.e. soot content, allowing early detection of fuel or combustion problems.

The test kit is claimed to be the only system currently on the market that detects both abrasive and corrosive wear onboard, accurately and economically, using just one test and one device. It can help detect problems such as inadequate or sub-optimal cylinder lubrication, changes in fuel sulphur content, problems with the injection and atomisation of the fuel, cat fines in the fuel, and problems with the tribological friction pairing of pistons, rings and cylinder liners.

The company says the kit is in use with more than 100 customers. One user, Eric Carlsen, senior superintendent of the Danish ship operator Norden, said: “The CMT Cold Corrosion Test Kit is exactly what we have been looking for. It is just what we need for measuring both abrasion and corrosion, and produces reliable results equal to those measured in a laboratory. The comprehensive data provided by this easy-to-use system is a real advantage for our operations”.