TBM gearboxes and hydraulic stations operate under extreme conditions—high load, high temperature, high humidity, and constant vibration. In this environment, the condition of the oil changes fast.
We installed two online monitoring cabinets on a China Railway Tunneling Equipment TBM, one for the gearbox and one for the hydraulic station. Each cabinet is equipped with:
A particle counter – tracking contamination levels in real time
A metal wear particle sensor – detecting both ferrous and non-ferrous wear debris
A 6-in-1 oil condition sensor – continuously measuring viscosity, temperature, water content, density, dielectric constant, and water activity
The system runs 24/7. No manual sampling. No waiting for lab results. Just continuous, reliable data—delivered straight to the operator's screen.
If particle counts rise, if moisture creeps up, if abnormal wear metals appear—the system flags it immediately. The maintenance team gets an early warning before a small issue becomes a costly failure.
For tunnel boring operations, unplanned downtime is not just expensive—it's a major disruption to the entire project schedule. With real-time oil monitoring, the maintenance strategy shifts from reactive to predictive. You don't wait for something to break. You act on the data.
This is what smart infrastructure maintenance looks like.
