Company Profile

Flame personnel are qualified sea-going marine engineers with many years experience of diesel engine operation and maintenance, together with specific experience of diesel engine combustion and lubrication.

Our recent history goes back to 1971 when Flame was first established as a shipping company. In 1974 it began investigating combustion and lubrication conditions in marine diesel engines. Its first investigation using cylinder lubricant drain analysis was carried out in 1975 on a Sulzer 5RND68 2-stroke crosshead engine. The results were considered very interesting but the technology appeared to have little practical application until the surge in lubricant feed rates applied to the new generation of long stroke engines.

Cylinder lubricant drain analysis has been used by marine lubricant manufacturers since the 1960's to evaluate the performance of new formulations of cylinder lubricants. After stringent laboratory engine testing a new lubricant would be subjected to "field" testing and applied to a pair of cylinders to allow comparison in performance of the new lubricant against an established product. The "field test" would run for about 6 months on board ship and during that period the drain from each cylinder would be analysed in a laboratory and the results from each group of cylinders compared.
During its investigation of combustion conditions in the mid 1990's on the long stroke marine engines Flame began again to use cylinder lubricant drain analysis, but, instead of a brief test over 3,000 hours, continued the sampling and analyses for longer periods of 7,000 hours and more. The initial investigations established that many engines were in fact being "over-lubricated" and that the excess lubricant was being burned, in some cases causing heavy piston deposits and even ring seizure.

Intensifying the investigations in 1998 Flame extended sampling to all cylinders and it was seen that regular sampling and analysis opened up a new possibilities for monitoring the performance of long stroke cross-head marine diesel engines and reducing operating and maintenance costs.