Basic Description of Lubricant Films

[SuperSalad]

The Importance of Lubricant Film Strength

Fairly good, not overly-technical description of lubricant films that some newer ( and maybe some older

) BITOG members may benefit from.

 

[paulri]

Thanks for posting the article. I had never heard of anti-scuff additives before.

The way the guy describes it... there is just an awful lot that goes into the formulation of these oils.... No brainer I know.

It made me start wondering about the ratios between the various additive packs. I have only come across brief comments, about how they have to balance cleaning agents with antiwear, because too much of one would overwhelm the other. Do you know of any good articles that can delve further into this--preferably with tests run?

 

[SuperSalad]

Most of the published papers aren't public and would require purchasing, so I couldn't find a perfect example, but I think this one sort of illustrates the point.
Results of Additive Interactions
It shows some of their combinations were beneficial while others were detrimental. How they interact all depends on the chemistry, function, and mechanism of each additive.

Here are a few other items that describe the effects of the interactions:
Competition for Metal Surfaces
The Critical Role of Additives in Lubrication

 

[paulri]

Thanks for those informative links.

The Competition for Metal Surfaces, and the Machinery Lubrication article both stated that point. OK, so until I get some evidence to the contrary, I can assume this is most likely true.

The Results article (well, it was powerpoint notes, not an actual article) was interesting. I tried keeping track of which oil (with which additive pack) was being tested in each test, so I might have gotten things mixed up, but if I was on target, it seems like the oils with supplemented additive packs did better than just the base oils with small additive packs, but each one did better at one test or another. So it really does come down to balance, when deciding how much of each additive to blend in.

 

[paulri]

BTW--is Dover Chemical corporation one of the companies that makes additives, like Infineum? I keep reading here that there really aren't that many companies that do this.

 

[SuperSalad]

I'm not all that familiar with Dover. I believe they specialize in metal working fluid additives, which I do not have any real experience with from my work.

Yes, the balance is important and "more" rarely equates to "better" when it comes to additives. Without the right balance, something will be sacrificed. So you may get a benefit in one area, but excelling at one attribute while ignoring the rest makes for a poor lubricant.

 

[MolaKule]

Commercial additive manufacturers acquire various chemistries from companies such as RT Vanderbilt, BASF, Dover, DuPont, and a host of other specialty chemical manufacturers to make the additive packages.

A few Commercial additive manufacturers make some of their chemistries in-house.

 

[paulri]

So places like Infineum would buy (some of) their stuff from places like Dover?

Originally Posted By: MolaKule
Commercial additive manufacturers acquire various chemistries from companies such as RT Vanderbilt, BASF, Dover, DuPont, and a host of other specialty chemical manufacturers to make the additive packages.

A few Commercial additive manufacturers make some of their chemistries in-house.