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Oil Purifiers Are Needed On All Oil Engine Ships BY RALPH L. YOUNG Two centrifugal oil purifiers on the M. S. East INpIAN for removing impurities from the fuel oil—They are fitted with closed inlet and discharge connections to prevent escape of vapors at high temperatures best teacher, has shown the majority of operators of diesel driven vessels that a positive means of purifying lubricating oil is neces- sary in order that their engines may operate with maximum reliability and economy. Although designers of oil engines have made great strides in the direc- tion of keeping carbon and other abrasives out of the crankcase, the very principle upon which the en- gine is built seems to forestall com- plete elimination and we do not be- lieve that any manufacturer will ob- ject to the statement that even in the best diesel engines now being built the accumulation of carbon in the crankcase after several thousand miles of operation is sufficient to se- riously impair the lubricating value of the oil. In marine work particularly, the centrifugal oil purifier seems to be the only logical method to employ in | erent which is still the The author, Ralph L. Young of the De Laval Separator Co., prepared this article at the request of the editor. removing this carbon, or at least that part of it which is removable by mechanical means or _ precipitation. Another feature of the centrifugal which makes it particularly useful in marine work is its great efficiency in separating water from oil. Save Lubricating Oil One of the first objections raised against the diesel engine was its high consumption of lubricating oil and it is only fair to give the centrifugal purifier due credit for completely counteracting this argument. When water and solid impurities are con- tinuously removed from the oil it can be kept in service indefinitely and in modern engines which are de- signed so that the actual consump- tion or burning up of oil is almost nil, it has been found that the only make-up oil needed is that which finds its way into the crankcase from the cylinder lubricators. This is true of the two 2500-horsepower Sun-Dox- fotd engines which drive the M. S. East INDIAN of the Ford Motor Co. 65 During her first 20,000 miles of service, average consumption of lub- ricating oil was but eight gallons a day for the two’ engines, all of it going through the lubricators. Two lubricating oil purifiers are installed on this vessel and over 5000 gallons of oil goes through them each day. Each engine holds 400 gallons of oil which means that all the oil in cir- culation is purified between six and seven times daily. What this means, in the way of better lubrication is shown by the fact that upon the com- pletion of 20,000 miles the oil in the system was declared by competent engineers to be equal to new. While we do not propose to con- fuse the reader by injecting into this discussion of lubricating oil purifi- cation too much data with regard to the purification of fuel oil, it may be well to mention here that results of the EAST INDIAN are, perhaps, made still more satisfac- tory from a strictly lubricating stand- point by the use of two fuel oil (Continued on Page 8) /