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Understanding Foaming: Ashley Mayer, Noria Corporation

Foaming is caused by air bubbles in lubricating oil and can be difficult to troubleshoot. Common causes of foaming include water contamination, solids contamination, depleted defoamant additives, or mechanical issues. Tests for water content, particle counting, foam tendency, and foam stability can help identify the root cause. Addressing the underlying issue, such as contamination ingress or cross-contamination, in addition to an oil change or flush is usually required to resolve excessive foaming problems.

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46 views

Understanding Foaming: Ashley Mayer, Noria Corporation

Foaming is caused by air bubbles in lubricating oil and can be difficult to troubleshoot. Common causes of foaming include water contamination, solids contamination, depleted defoamant additives, or mechanical issues. Tests for water content, particle counting, foam tendency, and foam stability can help identify the root cause. Addressing the underlying issue, such as contamination ingress or cross-contamination, in addition to an oil change or flush is usually required to resolve excessive foaming problems.

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octo widodo
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We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Understanding Foaming

Ashley Mayer, Noria Corporation

Foaming is a common problem with oil-lubricated components. It can be difficult to troubleshoot, and for
this reason, accurate testing to determine the root cause of the foaming is essential.

Symptoms
Foam is a collection of small bubbles of air that accumulate on or near the surface of the fluid. In severe
cases, the foam can leak out of the machine through breathers, sight glasses and dipsticks. Foam is an
efficient thermal insulator, so the temperature of the oil can become difficult to control. The presence of
air bubbles in the fluid can lead to excessive oxidation, cavitation, the reduction of lubricating properties of
the oil and hydraulic system failure.

Causes
The causes of foaming are many. The most common include:

• Water contamination
• Solids contamination
• Depleted defoamant (possibly due to the use of excessively fine filtration and electrostatic
separation technologies)
• Mechanical issues (causing excessive aeration of the fluid)
• Overfilling of the sump with splash- and bath-lubricated compartments
• Cross contamination of the fluid with the wrong lubricant
• Contamination of the fluid with grease
• Too much defoamant additive, either by incorrect formulation or by incorrect reconstruction
(sweetening) of the additive package

Measurement
The first tests attempted should be water quantification and particle counting. The formation of air bubbles
is often aided by such contaminants, as they provide a nucleation point for the air bubbles. It is important
that degassing techniques are used to prepare the fluid prior to the particle count. If you have a foaming
problem, the air bubbles in the fluid would otherwise trigger an abnormally high particle count, and that
could lead to attempting an incorrect solution.

If the particle count does not reveal any significant contamination, try a patch test using very fine-rated
(one micron or less) filter paper. Scrutinize the patch closely under high magnification. You might also
want to run a pentane-insolubles test (ASTM D4055-E). This will quantify very fine contamination which
can provide nucleation material.

Ask your laboratory to run tests for foam tendency and foam stability. These tests are described by ASTM
D892 and are run together. Foam tendency describes the amount of foam generated immediately after
the fluid is agitated and aerated, and foam stability quantifies the amount of foam remaining 10 minutes
after the cessation of aeration.

The test allows for an “Option A”, which is in place to ensure the defoamant is well mixed and suspended
in the lubricant prior to the commencement of testing. This option should be requested for gear oils due to
the nature of the defoamant chemistry commonly used in these fluids. Comparison of the tendency and
stability can indicate the presence of a mechanical issue, rather than an additive/contamination issue.

Cross contamination of the fluid by another lubricating fluid commonly contributes to foaming and other
issues. Additive interferences prevent the defoamant from working properly. To check for this, analyze a
sample of new oil from your storage for its elemental signature and compare it to a sample of used oil.
The additive signature of the used oil should be similar to that of the new oil, but slight differences (due to
additive depletion) are likely.

Pay close attention to elements commonly found in additives (calcium, magnesium, boron, molybdenum,
phosphorus, sulfur, etc.) which are present in the used oil but not in the new oil. Also, keep an eye out for
elements in the used oil which might indicate grease contamination, if this is possible.

Analyzing a sample of new oil from your storage facility and used oil together will let you know if the
component got topped off with the wrong fluid, but it won’t trigger any alarms if cross contamination took
place during lubricant formulation or in the storage facility. If you can’t see any signs of cross
contamination here, see if you can secure a sample of new oil from a different blending batch.

The use of Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy should also be considered, once again using
samples of new oil and the used oil. Advanced analysis of the spectra is necessary. FTIR is particularly
useful if fluids with different base stocks have been mixed.

Possible Solutions
Hopefully your testing will have alerted you to some possible reasons for the excessive foaming of the
oil.

In almost all cases, an oil change, or at least a partial drain and refill, will be required. If some type of
contamination was the root cause, a flush will be required, too. This can become expensive for large-
volume systems; so in certain cases, reconditioning of the lubricant may be considered. Be aware that
this does not always work, and is likely to be a stay of execution rather than a pardon.

Make sure you address the root of the problem before conducting the drain and flush. For particle and
water contamination, concentrate on managing contaminant ingress as far as possible before resorting to
filtration. This is particularly important with gear oils where fine filtration can strip the additive from the
fluid.

If cross contamination with another oil is the issue, address the solution with fluid identification (color-
coding) and training. If grease contamination led to the foam formation, make sure the correct relube
quantities and frequencies have been calculated and are being adhered to. Mechanical issues might be
due to tank design, oil return-path geometry or suction-side piping air leaks.

Troubleshooting foaming can be a challenging process, but by a process of elimination, you should be
able to identify and correct the root cause.

About the Author


As a senior technical consultant for Noria Corporation, Ashley Mayer is certified as an ICML Level I and
Level II MLA, Level I MLT, and a certified maintenance and reliability professional. During his seven years
with Wearcheck Africa and ABB South Africa, he diagnosed nearly one-quarter of a million oil samples.
He’s had wide exposure to a number of industries, and has been published by the South African
Mechanical Engineer, Noria Corporation and Wearcheck Africa. Contact Ashley at [email protected].

Please reference this article as:


Ashley Mayer, Noria Corporation, "Understanding Foaming". Practicing Oil Analysis Magazine. November
2008

Issue Number: 200811


Practicing Oil Analysis
Squeaky Wheel
 

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