akcem commonly ensures, on behalf of the aeronautic industrialists, motor mechanics or airline companies, control of the state of cleanliness of airplanes engine fuel and oil circuits or of the parts or mechanical component which compose them, according to the criteria or maintenance instructions defined by the manufacturers. This control is carried out by particles examination.
In aeronautic, these monitoring controls are set up to check the cleanliness of the parts or of the oil circuits prior to delivery of the new engines, or to avoid a possible degradation of components throughout their exploitation. The affected particles can either come from a pollution of external origin to the engine, or result from the degradation of an internal part of the circuit.
Obviously, what applies to an airplane engine also applies to other types of engine (automobile, machine tool,…), or generally speaking to any type of system involving moving parts.
Procedure:
Extraction of the particles by immersion of the part in an appropriate solvent by agitation, using the ultrasounds under laminar flow
Collection of the particles by vacuum filtration on membranes of selected porosity
Sorting out the various types of particles if necessary (for example magnetic / non-magnetic)
Determination of the particles total mass by gravimetry
Particle counting and grain sizing by observation through Stereomicroscope and/or through SEM
Particles chemical identification by X microanalysis