High-performance base fluids for environmentally adapted lubricants

Future lubricants have to be more environmentally adapted, have a higher level of performance, and lower total life cycle cost (LCC) than presently used lubricants. To be able to formulate those lubricants, the properties of the base fluids have to be well known. Base fluid properties that influence the formulated lubricant performance could be divided into three different groups. These groups are: physical, chemical, and film formation properties. In this study, properties from all of these groups are investigated to improve the understanding on thier influence on base fluid overall performance. There are more or less environmentally adapted base fluids available for formulation of lubricants. They could be divided into different groups, mineral, semi-synthetic, and synthetic fluids. Synthetic fluids could be of different types: polyalpha olefins (PAO), synthetic ester, polyglycols, and others. The most interesting group for formulation of environmentally adapted lubricants are the synthetic esters. In this study, the properties for a large number of environmentally adapted ester base fluids are studied in detail. The tested properties relate to the macroscopic/molecular behavior and include: viscosity temperature-pressure effects, eta(p, T), thermal conductivity, lambda(p, T), and heat capacity per unit volume, pc(p)(p, T). The film formation capability in elasto-hydrodynamic contacts is also studied. Different connections between the molecular structure and the performance of the fluids are discussed. As an example, it is found that a large number of carboxylate groups in the ester molecule improve the thermal properties, and thereby a thicker lubricating film could be maintained in highly loaded, high-slip contacts. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.