Company

Flame Marine has been an independent provider of engine performance and oil analysis services since 1998. Its designs and innovations have helped shape the thinking on scavenge drain analysis and its role, through papers published by CIMAC, both independently and jointly with an engine designer, MAN B&W.

Flame Diagnostic was developed at sea, by engineers running long-stroke crosshead engines, and has been refined against the data from every engine sampled since. The interpretation rests on a quantitative model of the engine built from that record.

Most scavenge drain oil analysis is offered by lubricant suppliers as part of their service; Flame Marine supplies no lubricant and sells no fuel, so its advice on feed rate and BN has no commercial interest in the quantity or grade of oil consumed. We have offices in Europe and Australasia.

Standing

• Independent of every lubricant and fuel supplier, and trusted by ship managers and engine designers.
• First to understand and use dilution and contamination correction in drain oil sampling, with Flame ADT. Dilution.
• An engine designer uses Flame Marine's analysis in its own research and development testing.
• Other service providers deliver condition monitoring built on Flame Diagnostic under their own names.
• The method was presented at MARTECH 2000, the CIMAC World Congresses of 2001 and 2004, and the Motorship Marine Propulsion Conference 2003. The papers are on the resources page.
• Flame Marine designed and wrote the software and reporting system behind an engine designer's on-board diagnostic tool for main engine condition monitoring, presented jointly at the CIMAC World Congress 2016 in Helsinki.
• Samples are analysed in a laboratory accredited to ISO/IEC 17025, as the engine designers' guidance recommends.