Correlation between pressure-viscosity coefficient and traction coefficient of the base stocks in traction lubricants: A molecular dynamic approach

The lubricants for traction-continuously variable transmissions (t-CVT) could generate high traction under a high pressure, which requires the design of a special class of base stock molecules. This paper reports the development of a model, based on non-equilibrium molecular dynamics (NEMD) simulations, for estimating traction coefficients to facilitate the design of base stock molecules prior to their synthesis. The pressure-viscosity coefficients (alpha) of a number of base stocks in traction lubricants are calculated and the results are correlated with the corresponding traction coefficient tau. A linear alpha-tau correlation is obtained with a coefficient of determination of as high as 0.85.