Revisiting the ASME Pressure-Viscosity Report Using the Tait-Doolittle Correlations

The ASME Pressure-Viscosity Report was a seminal publication on high pressure-viscosity and density supervised by the ASME Research Committee on Lubrication, sponsored by dozens of industries, and undertaken by Harvard University using high-pressure equipment developed by Prof. P. W. Bridgman. The resulting measurements of the “Viscosity and Density of Over 40 Lubricating Fluids of Known Composition at Pressures to 150,000 psi (1034 MPa) and Temperatures to 425 °F (218.3 °C/491.5 K)” should have become an invaluable reference to tribologists around the world. The present work revisits that monumental effort to distill the results into an established equation of state using modern computer software. The authors used curve-fitting techniques to fit measured density and viscosity data to the parameters of the Tait-Doolittle equation for use in further tribological modeling. This information will help a new generation of engineers to model the piezoviscous properties of lubricant base-stocks in diverse tribological applications.